Primefaces won't call setter on ManagedBean

Question

I'm in the middle of building a web application (Spring 4, Primefaces 5.1 and JPA).

While one of my xhtml-pages has no problems working with its ManagedBean, the others won't really work. To be more specific, the UI input components (like inputText) won't call any setters from the managed Beans. I've already run my Tomcat (8) on debug mode, which showed me that the page calls the get-methods, but no set-methods at all. If I try to persist something, all values are null (or 0, in case of an int-value). (it even persists an object into the database with all values null, though I have declared some @NotNull constraints which should be taken to the database configuration via JPA)

So, question is: How can I make my inputFields work with the fields of my ManagedBean? (Eclipse also shows me in the editor, that theoretically, the connection to the fields is there, it knows the managed bean, the field and the get-/set-methods)

SoftwareManagedBean.java

@ManagedBean(name = "swmb")
@ViewScoped
public class SoftwareManagedBean extends AssetManagedBean implements
    Serializable {

    private String bezeichnung;

    private Software neueSoftware;
    // +some more private fields, every single one with its get-/set-method

    @Override
    public String getBezeichnung() {
        return super.getBezeichnung();
    }

    @Override
    public void setBezeichnung(final String bezeichnung) {
        super.setBezeichnung(bezeichnung);
    }

    //instantiante the field "neueSoftware"
    public void createEmptySoftware(){
        if(neueSoftware != null)
            return;
        this.neueSoftware = new Software();
    }

    //Persist Software with values from inputFields
    public void addSoftware() {
    createEmptySoftware();
    neueSoftware.setBezeichnung(getBezeichnung());
    softwareService.addSoftware(neueSoftware);
    //...
    neueSoftware = null;
}

viewSoftware.xhtml

 <h:body>
   <p:dialog header="Neue Software anlegen" widgetVar="SwNeuDialog" width="60%"
       closeOnEscape="true" draggable="false" resizable="false" position="center">
       <h:form id="SwDlgForm">
         <h:panelGrid columns="3" border="0" >

            <p:outputLabel for="swBezeichnung" value="Bezeichnung: " />
            <p:inputText id="swBezeichnung" value="#{swmb.bezeichnung}" 
               label="Bezeichnung" required="true" />
            <f:verbatim/>

            <p:outputLabel for="swKategorie" value="Kategorie: " />
            <p:selectOneMenu id="swKategorie" value="#{swmb.kategorie}" label="Kategorie" required="true" >
                <f:selectItem itemLabel="Kategorie w&auml;hlen" value="#{null}" noSelectionOption="true"/>
                <f:selectItems value="#{swmb.kategorieListe}" var="kat" itemLabel="#{kat.bezeichnung}" itemValue="#{kat}"/>
            </p:selectOneMenu>
            <p:commandButton value="neue Kategorie hinzuf&uuml;gen" />

            <!-- + some more input fields -->

            <p:commandButton value="Speichern" action="#{swmb.addSoftware()}" onclick="PF('SwNeuDialog').hide()" resetValues="true" process="@this"/>
            <p:commandButton value="Abbrechen" onclick="PF('SwNeuDialog').hide()" resetValues="true" process="@this"/>

        </h:panelGrid>
      </h:form>
   </p:dialog>

<!-- dataTable -->
</h:body>

AssetManagedBean.java

@ManagedBean
public abstract class AssetManagedBean {

//name of the hard-/software
private String bezeichnung;

//+ some more fields with get-/set methods

public String getBezeichnung() {
    return bezeichnung;
}

public void setBezeichnung(String bezeichnung) {
    this.bezeichnung = bezeichnung;
}

I hope that code is sufficient to see the problem, since the rest of the code follows the same structure. I think, the problem could lie within the xhtml file, but I don't see where or why. I've got the SpringBeanFacesELResolver (or however it is called), I've already looked through the code and compared it to another xhtml page and its Managed Bean, but there are no differences anymore. (though one is working, one not)

My debugger showed, how the working class/page (viewAdministration.xhtml) called the get-/set methods of the managed bean:

• opening dialog window: get...(), set...()
• clicking the commandButton to submit/persist: get() (old Value), set() (new Value), get() (new Value)
• Another get() (called by the add... method)
• (+ another get() for the dataTable on the main page)

on viewSoftware.xhtml, it looks like this:

• opening dialog window: get()
• clicking the commandButton to submit/persist:
• another get() called by the addSoftware method

As you can see, when I try to submit, there is no set or get.

So, to summarize:

• no setter called by trying to submit
• the code on viewSoftware.xhtml and SoftwareManagedBean is similar to another, functioning ManagedBean + xhtml page (I've compared it again and again)
• annotations in Managed Beans are the same (@ManagedBean, @ViewScoped)
• the inputFields are inside a form (
• I'm totally clueless, but I think it is some small mistake from my side that I can't just see.
• I've searched through the web and especially stackoverflow, but all the problems and answers I've found couldn't help me finding what's wrong
• Even without inheriting from a superclass it won't work (tried that out too)

I hope, you can help me. If this post is lacking some information, I'm sorry about that, I tried my best to not let this post grow too big and still get as much relevant information in it as possible.

Answer 1

So, I have found my mistake (or at least, I think I have). Only took me 2 weeks, but anyway...

I tried to test it out more specifically, wrote test classes and an xhtml page. Nothing worked (from simple Input over Dates to own classes).

The solution to this problem was to disable ajax on my commandButton (ajax="false"). When I tried to understand more of it, I realized that the commandButton opening the dialog window was nested in a facet inside a dataTable, and thus it had problems to properly set the values of the input fields.

So, thank you for your help. Maybe/hopefully this can or will help some other people later as well.

Answer 2

From the first glance at the code, without reading it whole, try putting process="SwDlgForm" on your command buttons, instead of process="@this". If that doesn't solve the problem, I'll read more carefully and try to help.