rich:autocomplete not working

Question

We are upgrading from jsf 1.2 to jsf 2. We are using apache myfaces 2.1 and rich faces 4.3.

Below is the xhtml code prior to migration :

<h:inputText id="#{userSearch}" value="#{bean.input}"/>
<rich:suggestionbox for="#{userSearch}" var="rslt" suggestionAction="#{bean.getSearchList}">                                    

</rich:suggestionbox>

As per migration doc , replaced <rich:suggestionbox> with <rich:autocomplete>. Following is the xhtml code :

<rich:autocomplete mode="ajax" autocompleteMethod="#{bean.getSearchList}" />

Below is the getSearchList method

  public List<CustomObject> getSearchList(String searchNow) {


  } 

The <rich:autocomplete> component exists inside a custom component which is invoked like this :

 <example:SearchUsr bean="#{someOtherObject.bean}"/>

The issue i am facing is , when an input is entered inside <rich:autocomplete> , ajax call happens but i am am getting below exception : Target Unreachable, identifier 'bean' resolved to null.

I printed the value of bean (of bean.getSearchList ) inside xhtml and it is not null.

Am i missing anything while using <rich:autocomplete> ? Please help.

EDIT 1 : When the autocompleteMethod is invoked like this : #{masterBean.object2.object3.getSearchList}, this issue is not observed where masterBean is the one defined in faces-config.xml with session scope. Also autocompleteMethod must accept String argument and not object. So is it that we cannot invoke autocompleteMethod on an intermidiate object ? It has to be a bean defined in JSF ? It is strange , but I am observing the same behaviour.

EDIT 2 : While trying to search for an answer , got this link which states the same issue : autocomplete method does not resolve bean if ui:included and only one parameter provided It gives two options : define autocomplete method with 3 parameters , use a composite component, rather than a ui:inlcude.

Answer 1

As evident from EDIT 2 , the autocomplete method signature is changed as :

public List<CustomObject> getSearchList(FacesContext context, UIComponent uiComp,String searchNow) , and the issue is resolved.