Spring Cloud Stream @ServiceActivator not messaging to errorChannel on exception

Question

I am using spring cloud stream using the spring-cloud-starter-stream-kafka. I have bound my channels to kafka topics as follows in the application.properties:

spring.cloud.stream.bindings.gatewayOutput.destination=received
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.enrichingInput.destination=received
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.enrichingOutput.destination=enriched
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.redeemingInput.destination=enriched
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.redeemingOutput.destination=redeemed
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.fulfillingInput.destination=redeemed
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.error.destination=errors12
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.errorInput.destination=errors12
spring.cloud.stream.bindings.errorOutput.destination=errors12

I am unable to get my program to produce an exception message to the error channel. Surprisingly, it doesnt even seem to try to produce it, even though I am in a different thread (I have a @MessagingGateway that dumps a message into gatewayOutput, and then the rest of the flow happens asynchronously). Here is the definition of my ServiceActivator:

@Named
@Configuration
@EnableBinding(Channels.class)
@EnableIntegration
public class FulfillingServiceImpl extends AbstractBaseService implements
        FulfillingService {

    @Override
    @Audit(value = "annotatedEvent")
    @ServiceActivator(inputChannel = Channels.FULFILLING_INPUT, requiresReply = "false")
    public void fulfill(TrivialRedemption redemption) throws Exception {

        logger.error("FULFILLED!!!!!!");

        throw new Exception("test exception");

    }
}

Here is the log produced (I have truncated the full exception). There is no...

• Complaint about errorChannel not having any subscriber
• Kafka producer thread logging

2016-05-13 12:13:14 pool-6-thread-1 DEBUG KafkaMessageChannelBinder$ReceivingHandler:115 - org.springframework.cloud.stream.binder.kafka.KafkaMessageChannelBinder$ReceivingHandler@2b461688 received message: GenericMessage [payload=byte[400], headers={kafka_offset=17, kafka_messageKey=null, kafka_topic=redeemed, kafka_partitionId=0, kafka_nextOffset=18}] - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 pool-6-thread-1 DEBUG DirectChannel:430 - preSend on channel 'fulfillingInput', message: GenericMessage [payload=com.test.system.poc.model.v3.TrivialRedemption@2581ed90[endpoints=[com.test.system.poc.model.v3.Breadcrumb@21be7df8],orderId=f72b2d9b-4e60-43fa-95d4-1b0b368fe49f,systemCategory=DEMO,systemSubCategory=,properties=,monetaryRedemptionAmount=456.78], headers={kafka_offset=17, kafka_messageKey=null, kafka_topic=redeemed, kafka_partitionId=0, kafka_nextOffset=18, contentType=application/x-java-object;type=com.test.system.poc.model.v3.TrivialRedemption}] - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 pool-6-thread-1 DEBUG ServiceActivatingHandler:115 - ServiceActivator for [org.springframework.integration.handler.MethodInvokingMessageProcessor@64bce7ab] (fulfillingServiceImpl.fulfill.serviceActivator.handler) received message: GenericMessage [payload=com.test.system.poc.model.v3.TrivialRedemption@2581ed90[endpoints=[com.test.system.poc.model.v3.Breadcrumb@21be7df8],orderId=f72b2d9b-4e60-43fa-95d4-1b0b368fe49f,systemCategory=DEMO,systemSubCategory=,properties=,monetaryRedemptionAmount=456.78], headers={kafka_offset=17, kafka_messageKey=null, kafka_topic=redeemed, kafka_partitionId=0, kafka_nextOffset=18, contentType=application/x-java-object;type=com.test.system.poc.model.v3.TrivialRedemption}] - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 pool-6-thread-1 DEBUG DefaultListableBeanFactory:251 - Returning cached instance of singleton bean 'integrationEvaluationContext' - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 pool-6-thread-1 DEBUG DefaultListableBeanFactory:251 - Returning cached instance of singleton bean 'integrationConversionService' - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 pool-6-thread-1 ERROR FulfillingServiceImpl$$EnhancerBySpringCGLIB$$9dad62:42 - FULFILLED!!!!!! - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 pool-6-thread-1 ERROR LoggingErrorHandler:35 - Error while processing: KafkaMessage [Message(magic = 0, attributes = 0, crc = 3373691507, key = null, payload = java.nio.HeapByteBuffer[pos=0 lim=400 cap=400]), KafkaMessageMetadata [offset=17, nextOffset=18, Partition[topic='redeemed', id=0]] - {}
...
...
2016-05-13 12:13:14 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE BoundedByteBufferReceive:36 - 40 bytes read. - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE DefaultConnection:126 - Reading from Partition[topic='enriched', id=0]@18 - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE BoundedByteBufferSend:36 - 60 bytes written. - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE BoundedByteBufferReceive:36 - 40 bytes read. - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE DefaultConnection:126 - Reading from Partition[topic='redeemed', id=0]@18 - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:14 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE BoundedByteBufferSend:36 - 60 bytes written. - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:15 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE BoundedByteBufferReceive:36 - 40 bytes read. - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:15 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE DefaultConnection:126 - Reading from Partition[topic='errors12', id=0]@0 - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:15 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE BoundedByteBufferSend:36 - 60 bytes written. - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:15 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE BoundedByteBufferReceive:36 - 40 bytes read. - {}
2016-05-13 12:13:15 kafka-fetch-1 TRACE BoundedByteBufferSend:36 - 60 bytes written. - {}

EDIT: Here is the content of my channels class:

public interface Channels {

    public static final String GATEWAY_OUTPUT = "gatewayOutput";

    public static final String ENRICHING_INPUT = "enrichingInput";
    public static final String ENRICHING_OUTPUT = "enrichingOutput";

    public static final String REDEEMING_INPUT = "redeemingInput";
    public static final String REDEEMING_OUTPUT = "redeemingOutput";

    public static final String FULFILLING_INPUT = "fulfillingInput";
    public static final String FULFILLING_OUTPUT = "fulfillingOutput";

    @Output(GATEWAY_OUTPUT)
    MessageChannel gatewayOutput();

    @Input(ENRICHING_INPUT)
    MessageChannel enrichingInput();

    @Output(ENRICHING_OUTPUT)
    MessageChannel enrichingOutput();

    @Input(REDEEMING_INPUT)
    MessageChannel redeemingInput();

    @Output(REDEEMING_OUTPUT)
    MessageChannel redeemingOutput();

    @Input(FULFILLING_INPUT)
    MessageChannel fulfillingInput();

    @Output(FULFILLING_OUTPUT)
    MessageChannel fulfillingOutput();

Answer 1

You don't show your Channels class, but the binder doesn't know that your "error" channels are "special".

The binder can be configured with retry and to route exceptions to a dead-letter topic; see this PR which is in the 1.0.0.RELEASE.

Alternatively, you can add a "mid-flow" gateway before the service activator - think of it like a "try/catch" block in Java:

@MessageEndpoint
public static class GatewayInvoker {

    @Autowired
    private ErrorHandlingGateway gw;

    @ServiceActivator(inputChannel = Channels.FULFILLING_INPUT)
    public void send(Message<?> message) {
        this.gw.send(message);
    }

}

@Bean
public GatewayInvoker gate() {
    return new GatewayInvoker();
}

@MessagingGateway(defaultRequestChannel = "toService", errorChannel = Channels.ERRORS)
public interface ErrorHandlingGateway {

    void send(Message<?> message);

}

Change your service activator's input channel to toService.

You have to add @IntegrationComponentScan to your configuration class so the framework can detect the @MessagingGateway interface and build a proxy for it.

EDIT

Another alternative just suggested to me would be to add an ExpressionEvaluatingAdvice in your service activator's advice chain.