Spring Framework swallows exception of custom converters - spring

Question

I'm facing an issue with Spring (and kotlin?), where my global error handlers do not catch any exceptions thrown within a custom converter.
I know spring supports string->UUID mapping by default, but I wanted to explicitly check if an exception is actually thrown. Which it is the following converter. The behaviour is the same with and without my own implementation of the converter.
My WebMvcConfuguration looks as follows:
#Configuration
class WebMvcConfiguration : WebMvcConfigurerAdapter() {
override fun addFormatters(registry: FormatterRegistry) {
super.addFormatters(registry)
registry.addConverter(Converter<String, UUID> { str ->
try {
UUID.fromString(str)
} catch(e: IllegalArgumentException){
throw RuntimeException(e)
}
})
}
And this is my GlobalExceptionHandler:
(it also contains other handlers, which I ommitted for brevity)
#ControllerAdvice
class GlobalExceptionHandler : ResponseEntityExceptionHandler() {
#ExceptionHandler(Exception::class)
#ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR)
#ResponseBody
fun handleException(ex: Exception): ApiError {
logger.info(ex.message, ex)
return ApiError(ex.message)
}
}
And finally, the controller:
#Controller
class MyController : ApiBaseController() {
#GetMapping("/something/{id}")
fun getSomething(#PathVariable("id") id: UUID) {
throw NotImplementedError()
}
}
Exceptions inside controller (for example the NotImplementedError) methods are caught just fine. But the IllegalArgumentException thrown within the converter when invalid UUIDs are passed is swallowed, and spring returns an empty 400 response.
My question now is: How do I catch these errors and respond with a custom error message?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I had the same problem. Spring swallowed any IllegalArgumentException (ConversionFailedException in my case).
To get the behavior i was looking for; i.e. only handling the listed exceptions and using default behavior for the other ones, you must not extend the ResponseEntityExceptionHandler.
Example:
#ControllerAdvice
public class RestResponseEntityExceptionHandler{
#ExceptionHandler(value = {NotFoundException.class})
public ResponseEntity<Object> handleNotFound(NotFoundException e, WebRequest request){
return new ResponseEntity<>(e.getMessage(), new HttpHeaders(), HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND);
}
}

Answer 2

I checked the solution from #georg-moser. At first, it looks good, but it looks it contains another issue. It translates all exceptions to the HTTP code of 500, which is something one not always wants.
Instead, I decided to overwrite the handleExceptionInternal method from the ResponseEntityExceptionHandler.
In my case logging the error was enough, so I ended up with the following:
#Override
#NonNull
protected ResponseEntity<Object> handleExceptionInternal(#Nonnull final Exception e,
final Object body,
final HttpHeaders headers,
final HttpStatus status,
#Nonnull final WebRequest request) {
final ResponseEntity<Object> responseEntity = super.handleExceptionInternal(e, body, headers, status, request);
logGenericException(e);
return responseEntity;
}
I hope it helps!

Answer 3

After some more trial and error, I have found a solution:
Instead of using #ControllerAdvice, implementing a BaseController that others inherit from and adding the exception handlers there works.
So my Base controller looks like this:
abstract class ApiBaseController{
#ExceptionHandler(Exception::class)
#ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR)
#ResponseBody
fun handleException(ex: Exception): ApiError {
return ApiError(ex.message)
}
}
If anyone can elaborate on why it works like this and not the other way, please do so and I will mark your answer as accepted.