Disabling Spring MVC view resolution for a REST only application - spring

Question

I would like to disable Spring MVC view resolution for my application.
My application only uses Thymeleaf for mail templates and Spring MVC for the REST API. It does not serve Thymleaf pages.
I have configured the following property in my application.properties:
spring.thymeleaf.enabled=false
But I still get errors such as:
20:28:51.851 [http-nio-8080-exec-10] ERROR o.a.c.c.C.[.[.[.[dispatcherServlet] - Servlet.service() for servlet dispatcherServlet threw exception
javax.servlet.ServletException: Circular view path [error]: would dispatch back to the current handler URL [/error] again. Check your ViewResolver setup! (Hint: This may be the result of an unspecified view, due to default view name generation.)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.prepareForRendering(InternalResourceView.java:205)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.renderMergedOutputModel(InternalResourceView.java:145)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:303)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1257)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.processDispatchResult(DispatcherServlet.java:1037)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:980)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:897)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:970)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:861)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:622)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:846)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:729)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:230)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:726)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:471)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doForward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:394)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:311)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.custom(StandardHostValve.java:395)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.status(StandardHostValve.java:254)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:177)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:79)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:87)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:349)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:784)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:66)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:802)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1410)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:49)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
How can I use Thymeleaf whilst disabling view resolution for Spring MVC?
edit: Actually the only view I am serving is the SPA's index.html as follows:
#Override
public void addViewControllers(ViewControllerRegistry registry) {
registry.addViewController("/").setViewName("forward:/index.html");
}
#Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/**")//
.addResourceLocations("classpath:/")//
.setCachePeriod(ONE_YEAR);
registry.addResourceHandler("/")//
.addResourceLocations("classpath:/index.html")//
.setCachePeriod(0);
}

Answer 1

I think problem here is, when spring encounters an error, it is forwarding "user" to /error page. Try adding following in your properties.
spring.resources.add-mappings=false

Answer 2

You probably have a controller which returns some string which cannot be resolved by Spring View resolver. If you want to return JSON object use #RestController annotation for your class
MainController.java
#RestController
public class MainController {
#GetMapping("/")
public TestResponseDto greeting(/*here can be any params*/) {
System.out.println("here");
return new TestResponseDto();
}
}
TestResponse.java
public class TestResponseDto {
public String response = "test";
}