jsf - Changing faces-config.xml from 2.2 to 2.3 causes javax.el.PropertyNotFoundException: Target Unreachable, identifier 'bean' resolved to null

Question

Have the following code snippets:

Bean:

import javax.faces.view.ViewScoped;
import javax.inject.Named;

@Named(value = "directoryBean")
@ViewScoped
public class DirectoryBean implements Serializable {

private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    ....
}

faces-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faces-config
    xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_3.xsd"
    version="2.3">
     ....
</faces-config>

group.xhtml

<ui:composition ...>

    <f:metadata>
        <f:viewParam name="id" value="#{directoryBean.id}" />
    </f:metadata>

</ui:composition>

In result getting the exception:

javax.el.PropertyNotFoundException: /group.xhtml @6,64 value="#{directoryBean.id}": Target Unreachable, identifier 'directoryBean' resolved to null

Got it after changing faces-config.xml from ver 2.2 to ver 2.3 syntax.

Meaning, with faces-config.xml with the following content everything works fine:

<faces-config version="2.2" xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_2.xsd">
....
</faces-config>

JSF 2.3.2 deployed on the Payara 4.1.2.172 (Full) server, and also added to pom.xml with "provided" scope.

....
<dependencies>
    ...
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.glassfish</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.faces</artifactId>
        <version>2.3.2</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.faces</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.faces-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.3</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>            
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax</groupId>
        <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
        <version>7.0</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    ...
</dependencies>
....

I have checked all solutions that I was able to find during several hours, including different version of beans.xml:

1. initially beans.xml was not present in the project - issue persist;
2. added empty beans.xml - issue persist;
3. added beans.xml with two different options of bean-discovery-mode - "all" and "annotated" - issue persist;

Content of WEB-INFeans.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/beans_1_1.xsd"
       bean-discovery-mode="all">
</beans>

Tested on local instances of Payara 4.1.2.172, GlassFish 5 (java ver 1.8.0_144), and remote instance of Payara 4.1.2.172 (java ver 1.8.0_131).

Thanks!

Note: Example projects like this one https://github.com/AnghelLeonard/JSF-2.3/tree/master/JSF23InjectInConverterValidator give the same error.

Answer 1

I would like to post a complete solution, what should be done in order to make JSF 2.3 libs work in JSF v2.3 mode. Code samples below are based on GlassFish 5.0 server environment.

1) Upgrade JSF libs to the version 2.3.3 at least (it fixes some bugs related to jsf 2.3 mode activation)

2) The beans.xml should look like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/beans_2_0.xsd"
   bean-discovery-mode="all" version="2.0">
</beans>

3) faces-config.xml should look like:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<faces-config version="2.3"
          xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_3.xsd">
    ....
</faces-config>

4) And the key-player in all this setup - is specially formed Java class that actually activates JSF 2.3 mode, in my case it has name Jsf23Activator and absolutely empty content:

package ua.local.beans;

import javax.enterprise.context.ApplicationScoped;
import javax.faces.annotation.FacesConfig;

@ApplicationScoped
@FacesConfig(version = FacesConfig.Version.JSF_2_3)
public class Jsf23Activator {

}

The annotation @FacesConfig(version = FacesConfig.Version.JSF_2_3) is added once per project, no need to add it several times.

Basically the need to add this annotation was mentioned several times by others, but in my case it didn't work until I declared this class as CDI bean by adding annotation @ApplicationScoped. Only after I declared the class as CDI bean, cleared project / restarted server - the JSF 2.3 mode finally got activated and now I am able to inject JSF classes / utilize other JSF 2.3 features!