@Retryable only retrying once in integration test

Question

I've started using the @Retryable annotation in my Spring Boot application (Spring Boot 2.7.18, JDK 21) and it works perfectly fine!

Below are some relevant extracts from the code:

@EnableRetry
@EnableTransactionManagement
@SpringBootApplication
public class MyApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(MyApplication.class, args);
    }
}

@Service
public class MyService {

    @Retryable(
        retryFor = {LockAcquisitionException.class, SQLServerException.class},
        maxAttempts = 5,
        backoff = @Backoff(delay = 500),
        listeners = "myRetryListener"
    )
    @Transactional
    @Override
    public void doSomething() throws MyException {
        // Does something
    }
}

public class MyRetryListener implements RetryListener {

    @Override
    public <T, E extends Throwable> boolean open(RetryContext context, RetryCallback<T, E> callback) {
        log.info("Retry open.");
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public <T, E extends Throwable> void close(RetryContext context, RetryCallback<T, E> callback, Throwable throwable) {
        int attempt = context.getRetryCount();
        if (throwable == null) {
            log.info("Operation succeeded after {} attempts.", attempt);
        } else {
            log.info("Operation failed after {} attempts.", attempt);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public <T, E extends Throwable> void onError(RetryContext context, RetryCallback<T, E> callback, Throwable throwable) {
        log.warn("Inner retry {} of {} failed due to: {}", context.getRetryCount(), context.getAttribute("context.max-attempts"), throwable.getMessage());
    }
}

HOWEVER, when I run an integration test for the application, although the retry mechanism works, it only retries once. I suspect I am missing some initialization in the test, but I cannot figure out what it is.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

@SpringBootTest
@ActiveProfiles("test")
@EnableAutoConfiguration
@AutoConfigureMockMvc
class MyApplicationIntegrationTest {
}

The application writes some records to a MS SQL Server database, which I have simulated in test with an H2 in memory database. In the integration test I throw a SQLException via a 'BEFORE INSERT' trigger in the H2 table.

The output of the application is, as expected:

2025-01-29 12:05:14  INFO .MyRetryListener    : Retry open.
2025-01-29 12:05:15  WARN SqlExceptionHelper  : SQL Error: 50000, SQLState: S0001
2025-01-29 12:05:15 ERROR SqlExceptionHelper  : Simulated SQLException for testing
2025-01-29 12:05:15  WARN .MyRetryListener    : Inner retry 1 of 5 failed due to: Could not persist entities
2025-01-29 12:05:15  WARN SqlExceptionHelper  : SQL Error: 50000, SQLState: S0001
2025-01-29 12:05:15 ERROR SqlExceptionHelper  : Simulated SQLException for testing
2025-01-29 12:05:15  WARN .MyRetryListener    : Inner retry 2 of 5 failed due to: Could not persist entities
2025-01-29 12:05:16  WARN SqlExceptionHelper  : SQL Error: 50000, SQLState: S0001
2025-01-29 12:05:16 ERROR SqlExceptionHelper  : Simulated SQLException for testing
2025-01-29 12:05:16  WARN .MyRetryListener    : Inner retry 3 of 5 failed due to: Could not persist entities
2025-01-29 12:05:16  WARN SqlExceptionHelper  : SQL Error: 50000, SQLState: S0001
2025-01-29 12:05:16 ERROR SqlExceptionHelper  : Simulated SQLException for testing
2025-01-29 12:05:16  WARN .MyRetryListener    : Inner retry 4 of 5 failed due to: Could not persist entities
2025-01-29 12:05:17  WARN SqlExceptionHelper  : SQL Error: 50000, SQLState: S0001
2025-01-29 12:05:17 ERROR SqlExceptionHelper  : Simulated SQLException for testing
2025-01-29 12:05:17  WARN .MyRetryListener    : Inner retry 5 of 5 failed due to: Could not persist entities
2025-01-29 12:05:17  INFO .MyRetryListener    : Operation failed after 5 attempts.

while the output of the test is, sadly:

2025:01:29 12:12:37  INFO  .MyRetryListener   : Retry open.
2025:01:29 12:12:37  WARN  TriggerImpl        : Executing database trigger H2TriggerImpl: Simulated SQLException for testing
2025:01:29 12:12:37  WARN  SqlExceptionHelper : SQL Error: 0, SQLState: null
2025:01:29 12:12:37 ERROR  SqlExceptionHelper : Simulated SQLException for testing
2025:01:29 12:12:37  INFO  .AbstractBatchImpl : HHH000010: On release of batch it still contained JDBC statements
2025:01:29 12:12:38  WARN  .MyRetryListener   : Inner retry 1 of 5 failed due to: Could not persist entities
2025:01:29 12:12:38  INFO  .MyRetryListener   : Operation failed after 1 attempts.

Answer 1

According to your configuration only these exceptions are retryable:

retryFor = {LockAcquisitionException.class, SQLServerException.class},

So, make sure that your test environment throws one of those. All other exceptions are not retryable.