Bean validation fails for Spring Boot application

Question

I have a rest endpoint that is using javax validation with hibernate-validator.

@PostMapping(path = "/send")
public ResponseEntity<?> send(@Valid @RequestBody DisbursementProcessingDto processingDto,
                                  @RequestHeader(HttpHeaders.USER_AGENT) String userAgent, 
                                  @RequestHeader(name = X_REQUEST_ID, required = false) Optional<String> xRequestId,
                                  BindingResult bindingResult) {

the bean has the following validations

@NotNull(message = "A valid correlation Id must be provided.")
private UUID correlationId;
@NotNull(message = "A non null and postive amount is required")
@Positive(message = "A non null and postive amount is required")
private BigDecimal totalAmount;
@NotNull(message = "A non null and postive count is required")
@Positive(message = "A non null and postive count is required")
private Long totalCount;

This end point executes if I take the Valid annotation off. but as soon as I add it I get the following:

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: null
    at sun.reflect.annotation.TypeAnnotationParser.mapTypeAnnotations(TypeAnnotationParser.java:356)
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotatedTypeFactory$AnnotatedTypeBaseImpl.<init>(AnnotatedTypeFactory.java:139)
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotatedTypeFactory.buildAnnotatedType(AnnotatedTypeFactory.java:65)
    at sun.reflect.annotation.TypeAnnotationParser.buildAnnotatedType(TypeAnnotationParser.java:79)
    at java.lang.reflect.Field.getAnnotatedType(Field.java:1170)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.metadata.provider.TypeAnnotationAwareMetaDataProvider.findTypeAnnotationConstraintsForMember(TypeAnnotationAwareMetaDataProvider.java:65)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.metadata.provider.AnnotationMetaDataProvider.findPropertyMetaData(AnnotationMetaDataProvider.java:244)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.metadata.provider.AnnotationMetaDataProvider.getFieldMetaData(AnnotationMetaDataProvider.java:227)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.metadata.provider.AnnotationMetaDataProvider.retrieveBeanConfiguration(AnnotationMetaDataProvider.java:137)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.metadata.provider.AnnotationMetaDataProvider.getBeanConfiguration(AnnotationMetaDataProvider.java:125)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.metadata.provider.AnnotationMetaDataProvider.getBeanConfigurationForHierarchy(AnnotationMetaDataProvider.java:108)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.metadata.BeanMetaDataManager.createBeanMetaData(BeanMetaDataManager.java:203)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.metadata.BeanMetaDataManager.getOrCreateBeanMetaData(BeanMetaDataManager.java:231)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.metadata.BeanMetaDataManager.isConstrained(BeanMetaDataManager.java:174)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.engine.ValidatorImpl.validate(ValidatorImpl.java:195)
    at org.springframework.validation.beanvalidation.SpringValidatorAdapter.validate(SpringValidatorAdapter.java:119)
    at org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.web.WebMvcValidator.validate(WebMvcValidator.java:69)
    at org.springframework.validation.DataBinder.validate(DataBinder.java:892)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.AbstractMessageConverterMethodArgumentResolver.validateIfApplicable(AbstractMessageConverterMethodArgumentResolver.java:270)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestResponseBodyMethodProcessor.resolveArgument(RequestResponseBodyMethodProcessor.java:133)
    at org.springframework.web.method.support.HandlerMethodArgumentResolverComposite.resolveArgument(HandlerMethodArgumentResolverComposite.java:121)
    at org.springframework.web.method.support.InvocableHandlerMethod.getMethodArgumentValues(InvocableHandlerMethod.java:158)
    at org.springframework.web.method.support.InvocableHandlerMethod.invokeForRequest(InvocableHandlerMethod.java:128)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.ServletInvocableHandlerMethod.invokeAndHandle(ServletInvocableHandlerMethod.java:97)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.invokeHandlerMethod(RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.java:827)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.handleInternal(RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.java:738)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.AbstractHandlerMethodAdapter.handle(AbstractHandlerMethodAdapter.java:85)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:967)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:901)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:970)
    ... 61 common frames omitted\n"}

I have other endpoints that are using validation that work but this endpoint is not. I have been all over the web looking for some reason why this is happening and I'm coming up empty.

Answer 1

We had a similar issue recently reported to us: this is a bug in the JDK throwing a NPE when it doesn't know about an annotation.

I'm wondering if by any chance you are using annotations that are not present at runtime (for instance by using Bean Validation 2.0 annotations whereas you have Bean Validation 1.1 at runtime).