Can't get a conversational stateful bean to work

[andrew.rw.robinson]

I have an administration bean that contains a list of users and then a dataTable that the user can select a user to edit or delete (or click an add button on the page to create a new user).

I wanted to start the conversation on add/edit. The problem I am having is that my methods are never called when the bean is in the conversation state.

Bean:

@Stateful
@Name("userAdmin")
@Interceptors(SeamInterceptor.class)
@Scope(ScopeType.CONVERSATION)
@TransactionAttribute(TransactionAttributeType.NOT_SUPPORTED)
@RolesAllowed(Roles.USER_ADMIN)
public class UserAdminAction
 extends FacesBean
 implements UserAdmin
{
 @In(create=true)
 private EntityManager entityManager;
 private List<User> users;

 @Out(required=false) @Valid
 private User editingUser;

 /**
 * @return Returns the editingUser.
 */
 public User getEditingUser()
 {
 return this.editingUser;
 }

 /**
 * @see org.bethanyefree.beans.admin.UserAdmin#setEditingUser(org.bethanyefree.data.User)
 */
 public void setEditingUser(User editingUser)
 {
 this.editingUser = editingUser;
 }

 @Begin(join=true, ifOutcome="edit.user")
 public String editUser()
 {
 if (editingUser == null)
 return null;

 userPwordChanged = false;
 initUserData();
 return "edit.user";
 }

 @Begin(join=true)
 @TransactionAttribute(TransactionAttributeType.REQUIRED)
 public String onLoad()
 {
 if (load())
 return null;
 return "failed";
 }
 ...

Pages.xhtml:

<pages>
 <page view-id="/administration/users/index.xhtml" action="#{userAdmin.onLoad}" />
 <page view-id="/administration/users/details.xhtml" action="#{userAdmin.checkEditing}" />
</pages>

index.xhtml:

<t:dataTable value="#{userAdmin.users}"
 var="_user">
 ...
 <t:column>
 <t:commandLink
 action="#{userAdmin.editUser}"
 styleClass="imageButton"
 rendered="#{!_user.system}">
 <b:imageButton url="edit" />
 <seam:conversationPropagation type="join"/>
 <t:updateActionListener property="#{userAdmin.editingUser}"
 value="#{_user}"/>
 </t:commandLink>
 </t:column>
 ...

When I click the edit button nothing happens (setEditingUser and editUser methods are not called). If I change the bean's scope from CONVERSATION to SESSION everything works fine. I've tried just about everything I can think of:

* @Begin on the onLoad, begin not on the onload
* seam:link instead of commandLink
* seam:link instead of commandLink with propagate = begin and @DataModel on the users and @DataModelSelection on the editingUser
* Begin on the setEditingUser

And a bunch of other permutations involving the propagateConversation settings in both the seam link and a param to command link, using or not using begin, using updateActionListener vs. data model and data model selection, using the data model's name vs. bean.users method of referencing.

I have had no luck with any of these permutations. The only way I got it to work is using a SESSION bean (which is not what I am after).

I am obviously missing something, any ideas on what?

Thanks,
Andrew

Using Seam 1.0.1

[andrew.rw.robinson]

Sorry, forgot to mention that clicking on the link two times in a row works in that navigation works, but the user is the wrong user (it ends up always being the first user in the data table)

[andrew.rw.robinson]

Here is some more information with seam's logging turned up:

18:31:10,020 DEBUG [Lifecycle] destroying conversation context
18:31:10,020 DEBUG [Contexts] destroying: userAdminPword
18:31:10,020 DEBUG [Contexts] destroying: facesMessages
18:31:10,020 DEBUG [Contexts] destroying: entityManager
18:31:10,020 DEBUG [ManagedPersistenceContext] destroying seam managed persistence context for persistence unit: java:/bethanyEntityManagerFactory
18:31:10,023 DEBUG [Contexts] destroying: userAdmin
18:31:10,024 DEBUG [SeamInterceptor] not intercepted: destroy
18:31:10,036 DEBUG [Contexts] destroying: currentUser
18:31:10,036 DEBUG [Lifecycle] flushing server-side conversation context

For some reason, the @Begin(join=true) on my "public String onLoad()" method seems to be being ignored. So when I click a link, my list is no longer around as the conversation is dead.

Will keep looking, but not sure why Seam is ignoring the @Begin

[andrew.rw.robinson]

I got it to work by starting the conversation with a factory method instead of just relying on the page load method.

I made the following adjustments:

@Out(scope=ScopeType.CONVERSATION, value="adminUserList", required=false)
 private List<User> users;

 @Out(required=false, scope=ScopeType.CONVERSATION) @Valid
 private User editingUser;

...
 @Begin(join=true)
 @Factory("adminUserList")
 public String onLoad() ...

And in the xhtml:

<t:dataTable
 value="#{adminUserList}"
 var="_user" ...

That got me past my problem, but I'd still like to know what I am missing in terms of why the load method called from the pages.xml didn't cause a conversation to be started but the factory method did.

[norman.richards]

Is onLoad() returning null in the cases where @Begin is failing? The conversation interceptor interprets null as a failure condition.

[andrew.rw.robinson]

Oh, that would explain it, thanks.

Yes it is returning null, as I thought that was the appropriate result in the pages.xml if you don't want to change the navigation. If I return a non-null result, the navigation handler will be invoked. Is there a happy medium (like Outcome.REDISPLAY)?

[gavin.king]

Any non-null result that does not have an explicit navigation rule defined is ignored by the navigation handler" So just return "success".