StackOverflowError Jackson with Spring

Question

I have a Spring Boot Project with Jackson.

Whenever I start it, I get this exception (production environment only).

SLF4J: Class path contains multiple SLF4J bindings.
SLF4J: Found binding in [jar:file:/apps/upiswitchv2/lib/upiswitchv2.jar!/BOOT-INF/lib/log4j-slf4j-impl-2.7.jar!/org/slf4j/impl/StaticLoggerBinder.class]
SLF4J: Found binding in [jar:file:/apps/upiswitchv2/lib/upiswitchv2.jar!/BOOT-INF/lib/slf4j-nop-1.7.25.jar!/org/slf4j/impl/StaticLoggerBinder.class]
SLF4J: Found binding in [jar:file:/apps/upiswitchv2/lib/upiswitchv2.jar!/BOOT-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.7.25.jar!/org/slf4j/impl/StaticLoggerBinder.class]
SLF4J: See http://www.slf4j.org/codes.html#multiple_bindings for an explanation.
SLF4J: Actual binding is of type [org.apache.logging.slf4j.Log4jLoggerFactory]
*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with message transform method call failed at JPLISAgent.c line: 844
*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with message transform method call failed at JPLISAgent.c line: 844
*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with message transform method call failed at JPLISAgent.c line: 844
*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with message transform method call failed at JPLISAgent.c line: 844
*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with message transform method call failed at JPLISAgent.c line: 844
*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with message transform method call failed at JPLISAgent.c line: 844
*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with message transform method call failed at JPLISAgent.c line: 844
*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with message transform method call failed at JPLISAgent.c line: 844
2018-06-20 19:53:06,102 Log4j2-TF-1-AsyncLogger[AsyncContext@773cbf4f]-1 ERROR com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException: Infinite recursion (StackOverflowError) (through reference chain: java.lang.reflect.Parameter["declaringExecutable"]->java.lang.reflect.Method["parameters"]->java.lang.reflect.Parameter["declaringExecutable"]->java.lang.reflect.Method["parameters"]->java.lang.reflect.Parameter["declaringExecutable"]-

java.lang.reflect.Method["parameters"]->java.lang.reflect.Parameter["declaringExecutable"]->java.lang.reflect.Method["parameters"]->java.lang.reflect.Parameter["declaringExecutable"]->java.lang.reflect.Method["parameters"]->java.lang.reflect.Parameter["declaringExecutable"]->java.lang.reflect.Method["parameters"])

at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.BeanSerializerBase.serializeFields(BeanSerializerBase.java:706)
at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanSerializer.serialize(BeanSerializer.java:155)
at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanPropertyWriter.serializeAsField(BeanPropertyWriter.java:704)
at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.BeanSerializerBase.serializeFields(BeanSerializerBase.java:690)
at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanSerializer.serialize(BeanSerializer.java:155)
at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.ObjectArraySerializer.serializeContents(ObjectArraySerializer.java:256)
at com.fa.....................

Caused by: java.lang.StackOverflowError
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:763)
    at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:467)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:73)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:368)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:362)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:361)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
    at org.springframework.boot.loader.LaunchedURLClassLoader.loadClass(LaunchedURLClassLoader.java:94)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.BeanSerializerBase.serializeFields(BeanSerializerBase.java:709)
    ... 1011 more

Configuration

    <spring.boot.version>1.5.7.RELEASE</spring.boot.version>
    <jackson.version>2.8.5</jackson.version>

I have also provided a customMessageConverter

@Bean public MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter mappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter() {
    MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter jsonConverter =
        new MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter();
    ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
    objectMapper.configure(DeserializationFeature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES, false);
    objectMapper.setSerializationInclusion(Include.NON_NULL);
    jsonConverter.setObjectMapper(objectMapper);
    return jsonConverter;
}

I also added Log4J Disruptor Jar and added property:

System.setProperty("log4j2.contextSelector", "org.apache.logging.log4j.core.async.AsyncLoggerContextSelector");

Another observation: StackOverflowErrors increase whenever I get MethodArgumentNotValidException

For Example if I am using @Pattern Annotation, and if validation fails, @RestControllerAdvice catches MethodArgumentNotValidException, and in a short period of time (100ms) I get a StackOverflowError in SYSOUT.

Answer 1

Looks like you are serializing a class with properties of parameters and declaringExecutable. And in this case parameters contains a reference to declaringExecutable and in turn declaringExecutable has a reference back to parameters. This results in an infinite loop as the class gets serialized to JSON.

Take a look at removing the reference in one spot or the other. Or mark one side of the chain as a @JsonIgnore

Based on the comment:

The java.lang.reflect is just for the code that is trying to do the serialization. If you don't have anything with declaringExecutable and parameters there must be some of your code that is attempting to serialize a library class with those properties. Take a look at the return types on your endpoints and see if you're returning anything from a library that has that circular dependency.

Or post your controller class and any other serialization specific code in the question.