ejb3 isolated (autonomous) transaction inside session bean

Question

I'm using XA (2-phase) transaction. I want to log to one log-table through Log class and Entity Manager. My method inside EJB Session bean looks like:

private void logError(Throwable throwable) {
    LogEntity logEntity = new LogEntity();
    // Set everything
    entityManager.persist(logEntity);
}

I want to it in isolated (autonomous) transaction independent of any "outer" transaction. I have already tried to add @TransactionAttribute(value = TransactionAttributeType.REQUIRES_NEW) and @TransactionAttribute(value = TransactionAttributeType.NOT_SUPPORTED) before method name and does not work.

Before I call EJB3 method I create user transaction like:

try {
    UserTransaction transaction = (UserTransaction)context.lookup("javax.transaction.UserTransaction");
    transaction.begin();
    // Call EJB3 method
    transaction.commit();
} catch (Throwable t) {
    t.printStackTrace();
    try {
        transaction.rollback();
    } catch (SystemException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

I want to Log no matter if commit is done or not. How to?

Regards

Answer 1

Transaction attributes are only relevant when called through a proxy. They do not apply to direct calls, which includes private methods. Try something like the following (which uses EJB 3.1 no-interface view, though you could create a separate local interface for logging if you only have EJB 3.0):

@Stateless
@Local(BusinessInterface.class)
@LocalBean
public class MyBean {
  @EJB MyBean logger;

  @TransactionAttribute(REQUIRED)
  public void businessMethod() {
    try {
      ...
    } catch (Throwable t) {
      logger.logError(t);
      ...
    }
  }

  @TransactionAttribute(NOT_SUPPORTED)
  public void logError(Throwable t) {
    ...
  }
}

The important piece is that the call to logError happens through an injected EJB proxy, which allows the container to have control to suspend the XA transaction for the duration of the logError method.