How do I use the spring jars in my liferay portlet instead of the spring jars in the ROOT\WEB-INF\lib? - spring

Question

I have a portlet that I've created and I'm trying to use spring jpa in it for data retrieval. I'm using Spring version 3.2.14 and the spring jars that I need are deployed in my portlet's WEB-INF/lib folder.
On tomcat start up I keep getting the following exception:
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.NotWritablePropertyException: Invalid property 'packagesToScan' of bean class [org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean]: Bean property 'packagesToScan' is not writable or has an invalid setter method. Does the parameter type of the setter match the return type of the getter?
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.setPropertyValue(BeanWrapperImpl.java:1052)
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.setPropertyValue(BeanWrapperImpl.java:921)
at org.springframework.beans.AbstractPropertyAccessor.setPropertyValues(AbstractPropertyAccessor.java:76)
at org.springframework.beans.AbstractPropertyAccessor.setPropertyValues(AbstractPropertyAccessor.java:58)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyPropertyValues(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1360)
... 39 more
If I attach a debugger to Tomcat I can see that it is using spring-beans.jar(version 3.0.7.RELEASE) that is in ROOT/WEB-INF/lib which has a know issue with 'packageToScan' in LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean in my bean definition:
<bean id="reportingEntityManagerFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">
<property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
<property name="packagesToScan">
<list>
<value>org.preptoolkit.exercise.reporting.model</value>
</list>
</property>
<property name="jpaVendorAdapter">
<bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.HibernateJpaVendorAdapter">
<property name="showSql" value="true" />
<property name="databasePlatform" value="org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5Dialect"/>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
I have tried putting spring-beans-3.2.14.RELEASE.jar in $tomcat_home/lib/ext and liferay still uses the 3.0.7 verion.
Liferay Version: 6.2-ce-ga4
So how do I get Liferay to use spring-beans-3.2.14.RELEASE.jar instead of the one ROOT for my portlet?
(I've been pounding my head on this wall for 3 days now)
UPDATE
Here is the full stacktrace:
13:26:55,702 ERROR [localhost-startStop-1][ContextLoader:206] Context initialization failed org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'reportingEntityManagerFactory' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/classes/persistenceContext.xml]: Error setting property values; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.NotWritablePropertyException: Invalid property 'packagesToScan' of bean class [org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean]: Bean property 'packagesToScan' is not writable or has an invalid setter method. Does the parameter type of the setter match the return type of the getter?
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyPropertyValues(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1363)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.populateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1085)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:516)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:455)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:293)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:290)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:192)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:567)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:895)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:425)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.createWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:282)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:204)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:47)
at com.liferay.portal.spring.context.PortletContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(PortletContextLoaderListener.java:85)
at com.liferay.portal.deploy.hot.SpringHotDeployListener.doInvokeDeploy(SpringHotDeployListener.java:85)
at com.liferay.portal.deploy.hot.SpringHotDeployListener.invokeDeploy(SpringHotDeployListener.java:41)
at com.liferay.portal.deploy.hot.HotDeployImpl.doFireDeployEvent(HotDeployImpl.java:227)
at com.liferay.portal.deploy.hot.HotDeployImpl.fireDeployEvent(HotDeployImpl.java:96)
at com.liferay.portal.kernel.deploy.hot.HotDeployUtil.fireDeployEvent(HotDeployUtil.java:28)
at com.liferay.portal.kernel.servlet.PluginContextListener.fireDeployEvent(PluginContextListener.java:164)
at com.liferay.portal.kernel.servlet.PluginContextListener.doPortalInit(PluginContextListener.java:154)
at com.liferay.portal.kernel.util.BasePortalLifecycle.portalInit(BasePortalLifecycle.java:44)
at com.liferay.portal.kernel.util.PortalLifecycleUtil.register(PortalLifecycleUtil.java:74)
at com.liferay.portal.kernel.util.PortalLifecycleUtil.register(PortalLifecycleUtil.java:58)
at com.liferay.portal.kernel.util.BasePortalLifecycle.registerPortalLifecycle(BasePortalLifecycle.java:54)
at com.liferay.portal.kernel.servlet.PluginContextListener.contextInitialized(PluginContextListener.java:116)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4939)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5434)
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:901)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:877)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:633)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDirectory(HostConfig.java:1113)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployDirectory.run(HostConfig.java:1671)
at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.NotWritablePropertyException: Invalid property 'packagesToScan' of bean class [org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean]: Bean property 'packagesToScan' is not writable or has an invalid setter method. Does the parameter type of the setter match the return type of the getter?
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.setPropertyValue(BeanWrapperImpl.java:1052)
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.setPropertyValue(BeanWrapperImpl.java:921)
at org.springframework.beans.AbstractPropertyAccessor.setPropertyValues(AbstractPropertyAccessor.java:76)
at org.springframework.beans.AbstractPropertyAccessor.setPropertyValues(AbstractPropertyAccessor.java:58)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyPropertyValues(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1360)
... 39 more

Answer 1

There is a SpringHotDeployListener that tries to initialize Spring (with the library from Liferay) for every portlet app.
To turn that off for your webapp you will have to remove com.liferay.portal.deploy.hot.SpringHotDeployListener in the property hot.deploy.listeners in your portal-ext.properties.
If you use other portlet apps which make use of the Spring environment of Liferay, you will need to create an Ext Plugin and extend SpringHotDeployListener in ext-impl:
public class MySpringHotDeployListener extends SpringHotDeployListener {
protected void doInvokeDeploy(HotDeployEvent hotDeployEvent) throws Exception {
if (!hotDeployEvent.getServletContext().getServletContextName().equals("MyContextName")) {
super.doInvokeDeploy(hotDeployEvent);
}
}
// Same for doInvokeUndeploy
}
Use MySpringHotDeployListener insteand of SpringHotDeployListener in portal-ext.properties then.