Spring Config-Client doesn't refresh if Config-Server is down during initial startup - spring

Question

I am running a test with a barebones Spring cloud config-server and a client-application. I executed a refresh scenario (by calling /refresh endpoint on the client-application)
after config-server was down initially. Here is what I found
Client starts up with locally packaged properties when config-server is not reachable on startup. (I have the properties in application.yml that is bundled with client-application)
Git backend has different values for the properties compared to locally packaged version. Config-server is aware of the changes in git (Confirmed by connecting directly to config-server)
I bring up config-server and do a POST to /refresh endpoint on the client-application.
Client-application is not aware of the new properties from config-server.
In the second usecase
Client-application starts up and connects to config-server successfully. I see that the values from config-server have been fetched by the client-application successfully
I make a change in Git and call the /refresh endpoint on the client-application. Properties are refreshed successfully.
At this point it looks like /refresh doesn't work if the client-application comes up initially without being able to successfully connect to config-server. I am doing this to test
a fallback strategy for the client-application if config-server is not reachable when the client-application is starting up. (The fallback strategy is to have locally packaged properties
that will be used if config-server is not available on startup. If the config-server is available then the local properties are overriden). Any pointers to why this is not working and
what I could do differently? Thanks in advance.
Edit
Server-Code
#EnableConfigServer
#SpringBootApplication
public class ConfigServerApplication {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(ConfigServerApplication.class, args);
}
}
Client-Code
#RestController
#RefreshScope
#Component
public class Greeter {
#Value("${message.greeting}")
String greeting;
#RequestMapping(value = "/",produces = "application/json")
public List<String> index(){
List<String> env = Arrays.asList("message.greeting: " + greeting);
return env;
}
}
bootstrap.yml (On config-client application)
spring:
application:
name: configclient
cloud:
config:
uri: http://localhost:8888
management:
security:
enabled: false
logging:
config: classpath:logback.xml
server:
port: 8000
application.yml
message:
greeting: Hello from Local!
Config in Git (Served through config-server)
message:
greeting: Hello from Git-Edited!

Answer 1

According to spring-cloud-config documentation -
If you expect that the config server may occasionally be unavailable
when your app starts, you can ask it to keep trying after a failure.
First you need to set spring.cloud.config.failFast=true, and then you
need to add spring-retry and spring-boot-starter-aop to your
classpath. The default behaviour is to retry 6 times with an initial
backoff interval of 1000ms and an exponential multiplier of 1.1 for
subsequent backoffs. You can configure these properties (and others)
using spring.cloud.config.retry.* configuration properties.
Reference -> http://cloud.spring.io/spring-cloud-static/spring-cloud-config/1.3.1.RELEASE/