Spring MVC @ExceptionHandler failing to catch an exception

Question

I'm using Spring MVC to receive a file that is being uploaded with a form. This is my Controller that receives the request and handles possible exceptions:

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, 
                headers = {"content-type=multipart/form-data"}, 
                produces = "application/xml")
public @ResponseBody MyStuff processFormUpload( @RequestParam("file") CommonsMultipartFile file) throws 
    //return beautiful xml response generated from the input file;
}

@ExceptionHandler(Exception.class)
public ModelAndView exceptionHandler(Exception ex, HttpServletResponse response) {
    //return pretty exception page;
}

This is how I initialized the file resolver:

<bean id="multipartResolver"
      class="org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver">
    <property name="maxUploadSize" value="100000"/>
</bean>

Everything works beautifully even when exceptions are raised while generating the response. The only problem is when someone tries to upload a file that is bigger than the maxUploadSize . In this case the exceptionHandler does not catch the exception and the service returns an ugly Internal Error 500 caused by MaxUploadSizeExceededException .

How can I configure my web app to catch that kind of exception as well? I'd like to use @ExceptionHandlers and not having to change the project structure too much.

Answer 1

As far as my understanding goes, these exceptions are thrown during data binding, before the controller is actually reached, therefore resulting in a 500 and no calling of the exception handler method.

So far the only way I have figured out to handle what you have mentioned is for the controller to implement 'HandlerExceptionResolver' and provide implementation for:

    public ModelAndView resolveException(HttpServletRequest request,
        HttpServletResponse response, Object handler, Exception exception)

I agree, it does not look at elegant or flexible as an @ExceptionHandler. Hope this helps.