Spring @Async: null hibernate session on LAZY collection

Question

I'm using an @Async annotation on a service layer method.

Everything works fine when I EAGERLY load @OneToMany collection fields, but when I try to access LAZY loaded element I found that Hibernate SessionImplementor object session is null. That obviously give me an exception:

org.hibernate.LazyInitializationException: failed to lazily initialize a collection of role:
....    

Here is my collection field:

@OneToMany(mappedBy="abc", fetch=FetchType.LAZY, cascade=CascadeType.REMOVE)
@OrderBy(value="xsd asc")
@JsonIgnore
private Set<Item> items = new HashSet<Item>();

How can I bind hibernate session in order to LAZELY load my object inside @Async context?

EDIT

Here is my trancactionManager / entityManager configuration

<bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.JpaTransactionManager">
    <property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="emf"/>
</bean>

<tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="transactionManager" />

<bean id="emf" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">
    <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
    <property name="jpaVendorAdapter" ref="hibernateJpaVendorAdapter">

    </property>
    <property name="packagesToScan" value="it.domain"/>

    <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="persistenceUnit"/>
    <property name="jpaProperties">
        <props>
            <prop key="hibernate.dialect">${hibernate.dialect}</prop>
            <prop key="hibernate.ejb.naming_strategy">org.hibernate.cfg.ImprovedNamingStrategy</prop>
            <!--${hibernate.format_sql} -->
            <prop key="hibernate.format_sql">true</prop>
            <prop key="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto">${hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto}</prop>
            <!-- ${hibernate.show_sql} -->
            <prop key="hibernate.show_sql">false</prop> 

            <prop key="hibernate.connection.charSet">UTF-8</prop>

            <prop key="hibernate.max_fetch_depth">3</prop>
            <prop key="hibernate.jdbc.fetch_size">50</prop>
            <prop key="hibernate.jdbc.batch_size">20</prop>

            <prop key="org.hibernate.envers.audit_table_suffix">_H</prop>
            <prop key="org.hibernate.envers.revision_field_name">AUDIT_REVISION</prop>
            <prop key="org.hibernate.envers.revision_type_field_name">ACTION_TYPE</prop>
            <prop key="org.hibernate.envers.audit_strategy">org.hibernate.envers.strategy.ValidityAuditStrategy</prop>
            <prop key="org.hibernate.envers.audit_strategy_validity_end_rev_field_name">AUDIT_REVISION_END</prop>
            <prop key="org.hibernate.envers.audit_strategy_validity_store_revend_timestamp">True</prop>
            <prop key="org.hibernate.envers.audit_strategy_validity_revend_timestamp_field_name">AUDIT_REVISION_END_TS</prop>               
        </props>
    </property>
</bean>

<jpa:repositories base-package="it.repository"
                  entity-manager-factory-ref="emf"
                  transaction-manager-ref="transactionManager"/>

<jpa:auditing auditor-aware-ref="auditorAwareBean" />
<bean id="auditorAwareBean" class="it.auditor.AuditorAwareBean"/>

Answer 1

Spring's transaction context is preserved using ThreadLocals. This means that your SessionFactory is only available to the thread dispatching your request thus, if you create a new thread, you will get a null and a corresponding exception.

What your @Async method does is use a TaskExecutor to run your method in another thread. So the problem described above is happening with your service.

I quote from the Spring's JpaTransactionManager docs:

PlatformTransactionManager implementation for a single JPA EntityManagerFactory. Binds a JPA EntityManager from the specified factory to the thread, potentially allowing for one thread-bound EntityManager per factory. SharedEntityManagerCreator and @PersistenceContext are aware of thread-bound entity managers and participate in such transactions automatically. Using either is required for JPA access code supporting this transaction management mechanism.

If you want to preserve your annotation then you should take a look at Hibernate CurrentSessionContext and somehow manage the sessions yourself.

See this question for more info.