Junit with Spring - TestContextManager [ERROR] Caught exception while allowing TestExecutionListener

Question

In my Spring-Maven--Hibernate-Mysql runnint on Tomcat web app I'm running 2 types of Junit integration tests using 2 different Junit categories:

1. LocalTests - running in process (no server required), directly invoking my web layer methods(jersey in this case).
2. HttpTests - Simulating a client and calling my web-layer via an http request, requires tomcat up and running.

Above each test class I have:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(locations = { "classpath:testApplicationContext.xml" })

And my test suite looks like that (this is one of 2, I have one for each category):

@RunWith(Categories.class)
@IncludeCategory(HttpTest.class)
@SuiteClasses({ ...All My Test Classes... })
public class HttpSuiteITCase {

    // Excluded: NotificationTests, ImageHttpTests

    /**
     * Run once before any of the test methods.
     */
    @BeforeClass
    public static void setTestsConfigurations() {
    TestConfiguration.setup(false);
    }

My testApplicationContext is actually empty, it only contains the component scan:

<context:component-scan base-package="com.company.app" />

As I run my local tests it everything works smoothly, but as I'm invoking mt HTTP tests it crashes:

2012-07-22 17:56:13 DefaultListableBeanFactory [INFO] Destroying singletons in org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory@2598a35d: defining beans [httpBrandManagerTestsProxy,httpClubTestsProxy,<HERE THERE'S A BUNCH OF SPRING BEANS>,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalConfigurationAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalAutowiredAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalRequiredAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalCommonAnnotationProcessor,contextApplicationContextProvider,org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassPostProcessor$ImportAwareBeanPostProcessor#0]; root of factory hierarchy
2012-07-22 17:56:13 TestContextManager [ERROR] Caught exception while allowing TestExecutionListener [org.springframework.test.context.support.DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener@29565e9d] to prepare test instance [integrationTests.http.tests.UserLoginDataHttpTests@480d41f3]
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Failed to load ApplicationContext
    at org.springframework.test.context.TestContext.getApplicationContext(TestContext.java:157)
    at org.springframework.test.context.support.DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener.injectDependencies(DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener.java:109)
    at org.springframework.test.context.support.DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener.prepareTestInstance(DependencyInjectionTestExecutionListener.java:75)
    at org.springframework.test.context.TestContextManager.prepareTestInstance(TestContextManager.java:321)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.createTest(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:211)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner$1.runReflectiveCall(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:288)

I tried tons of stuff nothing works :( My testApplicationContext is under the test/resources folder.

I have noticed that the exception marks a specific class: UserLoginDataHttpTests. But I can't see anything special about this class, just a regular spring bean.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The problem occurs since Spring context gets loaded before one of my listeners, which is defined in web.xml. Spring is initializing some beans that uses non-spring classes that gets initialized using my own listener. To solve the issue I should make sure my listener runs first.