Application in SpringMVC 3.1, Grinder runs show "Expected session attribute xxxxxx" error

Question

First of all, I like to thank you for reviewing this problem, and provide any help -- to which I am very grateful!

I have developed an application in Spring MVC framework (3.1.1) in Openshift environment. I have tested and been satisfied with its functionality.

When I loaded the appl for performance tests on Grinder, I received the following message, a lot of them:

ERROR [org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[jboss.web].[default-host].[/].[MVCDispatcher]] (http-/127.8.157.1:8080-5) JBWEB000236: Servlet.service() for servlet MVCDispatcher threw exception: org.springframework.web.HttpSessionRequiredException: Expected session attribute 'session_account'

In my appl, session_account is a session attribute (defined by @SessionAttribute({...})) in 3 classes. It is also defined as a @ModelAttribute.

One of these 3 classes is LoginController.java, which initializes session_account by a method annotated by @ModelAttribute ("session_account"). It also contains REST services which authenticate users, and sets value to session_account after authentication. My functional test (seems) confirmed that every authenticated user had session_account defined.

Now comes performance tests on Grinder. Here are a few observations:

1. Most test scripts produced a large number of above mentioned error message;

2. When I limited Grinder runs to one user with a single (java) thread, no error. As soon as I relaxed the environment to more than one user OR multiple (java) threads, this error message occurred;

3. The error message seems to be from the Spring layer. I had a hard time to map it to my application code (lines)

4. In my application log, this error (line) frequently appears after a line with a later timestamp, e.g.:

   2014/03/03 13:44:22,930 INFO  [org.SandRiver.Controllers.JspController] (http-127.8.157.1/127.8.157.1:8080-32) home page
   2014/03/03 13:44:22,822 ERROR [org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[jboss.web].[default-host].[/].[MVCDispatcher]] (http-127.8.157.1/127.8.157.1:8080-54) JBWEB000236: Servlet.service() for servlet MVCDispatcher threw exception: org.springframework.web.HttpSessionRequiredException: Expected session attribute 'session_account'
   

I googled "Expected session attribute", and consulted related chapters in Spring documentation. Unfortunately, I am still here for help.

I have been so lost that I even have little idea regarding which files/code snippets are relevant to this problem. Here is the web.mxl but would be happy to provide more if asked.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd" metadata-complete="true" version="3.0">
  <display-name>LiquibilClient</display-name>

  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>MVCDispatcher</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
  </servlet>
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>MVCDispatcher</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

  <context-param>
     <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
     <param-value>/WEB-INF/MVCDispatcher-servlet.xml,
                 /WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml,               
                 /WEB-INF/application-security.xml              
     </param-value>
  </context-param>

  <listener>
     <listener-class>
        org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
     </listener-class>
  </listener>

  <listener>
     <listener-class>
      org.springframework.security.web.session.HttpSessionEventPublisher
     </listener-class>
  </listener> 

  <filter>
     <filter-name>Set Character Encoding</filter-name>
     <filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-class>
     <init-param>
       <param-name>encoding</param-name>
       <param-value>UTF-8</param-value>
     </init-param>
     <init-param>
       <param-name>forceEncoding</param-name>
       <param-value>true</param-value>
     </init-param>
   </filter>

   <filter-mapping>
     <filter-name>Set Character Encoding</filter-name>
     <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern>
   </filter-mapping>

   <!-- Spring Security  -->
     <filter>
         <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
         <filter-class>
                   org.springframework.web.filter.DelegatingFilterProxy
                 </filter-class>
     </filter>

     <filter-mapping>
         <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
         <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
     </filter-mapping>  
 </web-app>

Answer 1

I think that the problem may be caused by Grinder not waiting for the authentication request to return before hitting the server with more requests. The session already exists but it does not have a session_account yet, hence your errors accumulate until the authentication response is returned.

You could add a filter to prevent http requests from getting in during the authentication call, or you could change your Grinder Scripts to wait until first response is returned before letting other requests fly.