Use ImmediateRequeueMessageRecoverer in Spring Integration for AMQP?

Question

We've noticed that when erroneous messages are received to a Spring Integration Endpoint (from RabbitMQ) they are not retried. If there's a problem in our business code (ie the "service method" that receives the messages) so that it throws an exception, retries happen as they are supposed to.

This is our configuration:

var myService = ...
IntegrationFlows.from(Amqp.inboundAdapter(connectionFactory, queueName)
                .id(integrationFlowId)
                .autoStartup(autoStartup)
                .configureContainer(c -> c.acknowledgeMode(MANUAL)
                        .prefetchCount(10)
                        .concurrentConsumers(1)
                        .maxConcurrentConsumers(3))
                .messageConverter(messageConverter))
                .aggregate(...)
                .handle(myService, "myMethod", e -> e.advice(myAdvice()))
                .get();

The myAdvice method is implemented like this:

ExponentialBackOffPolicy backOffPolicy = new ExponentialBackOffPolicy();
backOffPolicy.setInitialInterval(200L);
backOffPolicy.setMultiplier(2);
backOffPolicy.setMaxInterval(5000L);

RetryTemplate retryTemplate = new RetryTemplate();
retryTemplate.setRetryPolicy((new SimpleRetryPolicy(MAX_VALUE)));
retryTemplate.setBackOffPolicy(backOffPolicy);
retryTemplate.registerListener(new RetryListenerSupport() {
    @Override
    public <T, E extends Throwable> void onError(RetryContext ctx, RetryCallback<T, E> callback, Throwable e) {
        log.error("Caught {} due to {} (count = {})", e.getClass().getSimpleName(), e.getMessage(), ctx.getRetryCount(), e);
    }
});
StatelessRetryOperationsInterceptorFactoryBean bean = new StatelessRetryOperationsInterceptorFactoryBean();
bean.setRetryOperations(retryTemplate);
bean.setMessageRecoverer(new ImmediateRequeueMessageRecoverer());
return bean.getObject();

The problem is that if we, for example, publish a message (such as { "yo": "MTV Raps" } ) that the org.springframework.amqp.support.converter.MessageConverter cannot convert into a DTO, the message is not retried:

[my-service-97c696799-6xs26] org.springframework.amqp.AmqpRejectAndDontRequeueException: Error Handler converted exception to fatal
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.ConditionalRejectingErrorHandler.handleError(ConditionalRejectingErrorHandler.java:146)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.invokeErrorHandler(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1436)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.handleListenerException(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1720)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.executeListener(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1495)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.SimpleMessageListenerContainer.doReceiveAndExecute(SimpleMessageListenerContainer.java:967)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.SimpleMessageListenerContainer.receiveAndExecute(SimpleMessageListenerContainer.java:913)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.SimpleMessageListenerContainer.access$1600(SimpleMessageListenerContainer.java:83)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.SimpleMessageListenerContainer$AsyncMessageProcessingConsumer.mainLoop(SimpleMessageListenerContainer.java:1288)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.SimpleMessageListenerContainer$AsyncMessageProcessingConsumer.run(SimpleMessageListenerContainer.java:1194)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:831)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26] Caused by: org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.support.ListenerExecutionFailedException: Listener threw exception
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.wrapToListenerExecutionFailedExceptionIfNeeded(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1746)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.doInvokeListener(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1636)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.actualInvokeListener(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1551)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.invokeListener(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1539)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.doExecuteListener(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1530)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.executeListener(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1474)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    ... 6 common frames omitted
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26] Caused by: org.springframework.amqp.support.converter.MessageConversionException: Don't know how to convert (Body:'{ "yo" : "MTV Raps" }' MessageProperties [headers={content_type=application/json}, contentType=application/json, contentLength=0, receivedDeliveryMode=NON_PERSISTENT, redelivered=false, receivedExchange=, receivedRoutingKey=myservice.routingkey, deliveryTag=1, consumerTag=amq.ctag-9De2w0uuQxnve_9k6HZ7tw, consumerQueue=myservice.myqueue]) to an object because no event type was found
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at com.mycompany.RabbitMQEventMessageConverter.fromMessage(RabbitMQEventMessageConverter.java:47)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.integration.amqp.inbound.AmqpInboundChannelAdapter$Listener.convertPayload(AmqpInboundChannelAdapter.java:361)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.integration.amqp.inbound.AmqpInboundChannelAdapter$Listener.createMessageFromAmqp(AmqpInboundChannelAdapter.java:342)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.integration.amqp.inbound.AmqpInboundChannelAdapter$Listener.createAndSend(AmqpInboundChannelAdapter.java:334)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.integration.amqp.inbound.AmqpInboundChannelAdapter$Listener.onMessage(AmqpInboundChannelAdapter.java:299)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    at org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.listener.AbstractMessageListenerContainer.doInvokeListener(AbstractMessageListenerContainer.java:1632)
[my-service-97c696799-6xs26]    ... 10 common frames omitted

It seems like the ImmediateRequeueMessageRecoverer specified in the myAdvice() method is not used, rather the default AmqpRejectAndDontRequeueException is used. The reason is most likely, in my mind, that the myAdvice() method has not been called by the Spring infrastructure yet. I've tried finding a way to switch the message recoverer in configureContainer , but I cannot seem to find a way to do so.

Does anyone know how I can re-queue/retry messages that fail before the "service method" is invoked by spring integration?

We're using Spring Integration 5.4.6 and Spring Boot 2.4.6.

Answer 1

The conversion is performed before a message is created.

Conversion errors are generally considered to be fatal - there is no point in retrying it because it will fail again.

Add an .errorChannel to the inbound adapter; its downstream flow will get an ErrorMessage for conversion errors.

However, it will also get error messages from the downstream flow too, so you will have to handle all error types there.

EDIT

You can add an error channel and handle the conversion exception on its flow. Bear in mind, though, that the message will be redelivered over and over again, with no delay.

@SpringBootApplication
public class So67801807Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(So67801807Application.class, args);
    }

    @Bean
    IntegrationFlow flow(ConnectionFactory cf) {
        return IntegrationFlows.from(Amqp.inboundAdapter(cf, "foo")
                    .messageConverter(new MC())
                    .errorChannel("errors"))
                .handle(...)
                .get();
    }

    @Bean
    IntegrationFlow errorFlow() {
        return IntegrationFlows.from("errors")
                .handle(msg -> {
                    if (((ErrorMessage) msg).getPayload().getCause() instanceof MessageConversionException) {
                        throw new ImmediateRequeueAmqpException("Requeuing due to conversion");
                    }
                    else {
                        // handle some other exception thrown by the downstream flow
                    }
                })
                .get();
    }

}

class MC implements MessageConverter {

    @Override
    public Message toMessage(Object object, MessageProperties messageProperties) throws MessageConversionException {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public Object fromMessage(Message message) throws MessageConversionException {
        throw new MessageConversionException("test");
    }

}

Or you can add a custom error handler to the container. The default error handler considers conversion exceptions to be fatal.

https://docs.spring.io/spring-amqp/docs/current/reference/html/#exception-handling