davsclaus I tried to do what you said but still have issues. I'm extending org.apache.camel.test.junit4.CamelTestSupport for the test case class. So I dug through CamelTestSupport class to figure out how everything is initialized and I found the setUp() function.

public void setUp() throws Exception {

applicationContext = createApplicationContext();

assertNotNull("Should have created a valid spring context", applicationContext);

supper.setUp();

}

I decided not to use this function because I don't want to create the application context again, which would defeat the purpose of what I'm trying to do. Instead I decided to use CamelTestSupport's setUp function. So I copy pasted CamelTestSupport's function into my class, renamed it to reSetUp() and tried to run the test again. The error I get this time round is the following exception, "Should have at least one route."

This is coming directly from the following two lines in CamelTestSupport.setUp()

context = createCamelContext();

assertValidContext(context);

The createCamelContext() function is invoking the following function from CamelSpringTestSupport

protected CamelContext createCamelContext() throws Exception {

return SpringCamelContext.springCamelContext(applicationContext);

}

Am I to assume that once I stop a Spring ApplicationContext that all the camel routes are destroyed?

I've attached my code because this is starting to get a little too complicated to just provide snippets.

I'm confused by your choice of words. You say "start/stop" but the error message I'm getting makes it sound like the route is "destroyed". If the CamelContext and all its routes have only been stopped as you say then why can't I start them again? Why is org.apache.camel.test.junit4.CamelTestSupport setup function failing with the error message "Should have at least one route." ?

That is unfortunate. I'll create my own test case.