WELD-001303 No active contexts for scope type java

Question

I am playing with JSF 2.2 (MyFaces implementation v2.2.6 and Weld v2.2.7.Final for CDI) since the beginning of the week and I'm facing the following problem : I can't directly access a flow entry point with my brother.

For example :

My webapp contains a flow named 'create' which permits to create a record in the database. I would like to be able to enter the URL http://my.domain/webapp/create/create.jsf in my browser address bar.

When I do so, the page doesn't correctly render and the following log appears in the server

log : WELD-001303 No active contexts for scope type javax.faces.flow.FlowScoped.

What am I doing wrong ? Shouldn't it be possible ? I hope it should !

I haven't any problem when I create a page, outside of the flow, having only one commandButton redirecting to the flow entry point. When I watch the source code, it seems that an id for the flow have already been created despite of the flow was not already accessed. That make me think FlowScoped is poorly designed. Moreover, such a work around (a 'launcher' page) breaks my own design and the end user experience.

What are the available solutions ?

Here is some sample code :

create.xhtml

<h1>Create record</h1>
<h:form id="create-record" prependId="false">
    <label for="name">Name</label>
    <h:inputText id="name" value="#{createController.name}" />
    <h:commandButton title="Abandon" value="Abandon" id="abandon" action="returnFromCreate" immediate="true" />
    <h:commandButton title="Validate" value="Validate" id="validate" action="#{createController.create()}" />
</h:form>

CreateController

package my.company;

import java.io.Serializable;

import javax.faces.flow.FlowScoped;
import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.inject.Named;

@Named
@FlowScoped("create")
public class CreateController implements Serializable {

    private String name;

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public String create() {
        // TODO
        return "returnFromCreate";
    }
}

xhtml "Launcher"

<h:form>
    <h:commandButton action="create" value="Go" />
</h:form>

create-flow.xml only contains a "flow-return" directive.

Answer 1

That exception indicates that you have navigated to the page, but you are not inside the flow. You should check if the link is really entering into the flow, but before that, check if client window api is enabled or not (javax.faces.CLIENT_WINDOW_MODE) because faces flow relies on this feature. MyFaces 2.2 Faces Flow implementation works very well, even with complex situations like nested flows that the implementation from Mojarra can't deal with, and is spec compliant.

In JSF 2.2 live series from Michael Kurz Blog there are some good examples about JSF 2.2 features. The examples works for both JSF implementations, MyFaces and Mojarra. Check the example for Faces Flow on Github jsflive.