JTA not rolling back when deleting cascade fails - jpa

Question

Using: Glassfish 3.1.2, EclipseLink.
I have the following three-classes JPA model:
#Entity public class Customer implements Serializable {
#Id private Integer id;
#OneToOne(cascade={CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE, CascadeType.REMOVE}, orphanRemoval=true)
private Person person;
[...]
#Entity public class Person implements Serializable {
#Id private Integer id;
[...]
#Entity public class Request implements Serializable {
#Id private Integer id;
#ManyToOne private Person person;
I try to remove a customer with the following strategy (using CMT):
<persistence version="2.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd">
<persistence-unit name="MyPU" transaction-type="JTA">
<provider>org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider</provider>
<exclude-unlisted-classes>false</exclude-unlisted-classes>
<properties>
<property name="eclipselink.ddl-generation" value="create-tables"/>
<property name="eclipselink.ddl-generation.output-mode" value="database"/>
<property name="eclipselink.logging.level" value="FINE"/>
<property name="eclipselink.logging.parameters" value="true"/>
<property name="eclipselink.logging.logger" value="DefaultLogger"/>
<property name="eclipselink.logging.timestamp" value="true"/>
<property name="eclipselink.logging.session" value="false"/>
<property name="eclipselink.logging.thread" value="false"/>
</properties>
</persistence-unit>
[...]
#PersistenceContext(unitName="MyPU")
private EntityManager entityManager;
#Resource private SessionContext context;
[...]
public void delete(Entity object) {
try{
object = this.getEntityManager().merge(object);
this.getEntityManager().remove(object);
} catch (Exception e){
this.context.setRollbackOnly();
}
}
When the Customer object is attached to a Person object that is attached to a Request, the delete cascade of Person fails causing the transaction to rollback, but the Customer is deleted from the database. I receive the following error:
INFO: [EL Fine]: 2012-12-28 10:53:38.1--Connection(27132168)--DELETE FROM CUSTOMER WHERE (ID = ?)
bind => [97]
INFO: [EL Fine]: 2012-12-28 10:53:38.125--Connection(27132168)--DELETE FROM PERSON WHERE (ID = ?)
bind => [111]
INFO: [EL Fine]: 2012-12-28 10:53:38.126--SELECT 1
WARNING: DTX5014: Caught exception in beforeCompletion() callback:
Local Exception Stack:
INFO: [EL Warning]: 2012-12-28 10:53:38.127--Exception [EclipseLink-4002] (Eclipse Persistence Services - 2.3.2.v20111125-r10461): org.eclipse.persistence.exceptions.DatabaseException
Internal Exception: org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: ERRO: atualização ou exclusão em tabela "person" viola restrição de chave estrangeira "fk_request_person_id" em "request"
Detalhe: Chave (id)=(111) ainda é referenciada pela tabela "request".
Error Code: 0
Call: DELETE FROM PERSON WHERE (ID = ?)
bind => [111]
Query: DeleteObjectQuery(111)
[...]
SEVERE: javax.ejb.EJBException: Transaction aborted
[...]
So, how can i cancel the customer removal when the cascade deletion fails?

Answer 1

There are two things that possible may go wrong here.
The transaction boundaries are not correctly specified
Maybe due to this, your application server does not issue the BEGIN statement correctly. This would explain that Postgres has a problem, while Oracle does not (it implicitly starts a transaction). Make sure your service methods wear the correct annotations. If everything is fine, maybe
There is a problem with your datasource.
Is it a JTA compatible datasource? Does it use the correct driver for Postgres? Please post your config so that we can check out.
I found an interesting link that may help you as well. It is about Postgres staying in autocommit mode (although when using Spring):
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jdbc/2007-07/msg00115.php