HOWTO handle 404 exceptions globally using Spring MVC configured using Java based Annotations

Question

I am building a Spring 4 MVC app. And it is completely configured using Java Annotations. There is no web.xml. The app is configured by using instance of AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer and WebMvcConfigurerAdapter like so,

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
@ComponentScan(basePackages = {"com.example.*"})
@EnableTransactionManagement
@PropertySource("/WEB-INF/properties/application.properties")
public class WebAppConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {
...
}

and

public class WebAppInitializer extends
    AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {
...
}

I am now trying to add a global/catch-all exception handler for 404 pages i.e. HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND but no success. Below are some of the ways I tried.

import org.springframework.http.HttpStatus;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ControllerAdvice;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ExceptionHandler;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ResponseStatus;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.NoHandlerFoundException;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.multiaction.NoSuchRequestHandlingMethodException;

@ControllerAdvice
public class GlobalExceptionHandlerController {

    @ExceptionHandler
    @ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)
    public ModelAndView handleException (NoSuchRequestHandlingMethodException ex) {
            ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
            return mav;
    }

    @ExceptionHandler
    @ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)
    public ModelAndView handleExceptiond (NoHandlerFoundException ex) {
            ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
            return mav;
    }

    @ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)
    @ExceptionHandler(NoHandlerFoundException.class)
    public void handleConflict() {

    }

    @ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)
    @ExceptionHandler(NoSuchRequestHandlingMethodException.class)
    public void handlesdConflict() {
    }

}

None of these methods get executed. I am at a loss as to how to handle this. I do not want to use web.xml becasue then I would have to create one just for this.

Answer 1

By default, the DispatcherServlet does not throw a NoHandlerFoundException. You need to enable that.

The AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer should let you override how the DispatcherServlet is created. Do that and call

DispatcherServlet dispatcherServlet = ...; // might get it from super implementation
dispatcherServlet.setThrowExceptionIfNoHandlerFound(true);