JSF 1.2 IllegalState Exception from backing bean redirect to external site

Question

I am using a command button to post a form to backing bean method. At the end of that method I am attempting to redirect to an external site after setting various options in the response. I get an IllegalState Exception because of the redirect.

at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebAppDispatcherContext.sendRedirectWithStatusCode(WebAppDispatcherContext.java:571)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebAppDispatcherContext.sendRedirect(WebAppDispatcherContext.java:528)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.SRTServletResponse.sendRedirect(SRTServletResponse.java:1234) 
at com.sun.faces.context.ExternalContextImpl.redirect(ExternalContextImpl.java:426) 
at com.sun.faces.application.NavigationHandlerImpl.handleNavigation(NavigationHandlerImpl.java:181) 

here is the problem code from the backing bean method:

if ( redirectPage != null ) {
    logger.debug("attempting redirect: " + redirectPage);
    try {
        getFacesContext().getExternalContext().redirect(redirectPage);
        FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().responseComplete();
    } catch (IOException ioException) {
        ioException.printStackTrace();
    }
}

return result;

I realize that the return statement is unnecessary and should not be reached, but in the case of this redirectPage getting populated this is required functionality. I can't use navigation rules to setup a dynamic external site redirect, right? What can I do?

looking closer at the exception, it seems the navigation handler is causing the problem. Apparently JSF does not like me jumping out a method called by a commandButton, any ideas how to work around this?

Answer 1

I just realized my problem - I am so used to using the navigation rule feature of JSF that I completely overlooked the fact that a return value is unnecessary if not going to use navigation rules! The exception was telling me it was a problem with navigation but I was not seeing it.

The simple fix was for me to have the commandButton action set to a method that had no return value and was not tied to any navigation rules.