Spring Boot #Async not working - amazon-web-services

Question

I expect that uploadImage method finishes once the file is uploaded to AWS, while scanFile method is still running asynchronously in the background;
#RestController
public class EmailController {
#PostMapping("/upload")
#ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.OK)
public void uploadImage(#RequestParam MultipartFile photos) {
awsAPIService.uploadImage(photos);
}
}
...
#Service
public class AwsAPIService {
public void uploadImage(MultipartFile file) {
try {
File fileToUpload = this.convertMultiPartToFile(file);
String fileName = this.generateFileName(file);
s3client.putObject(new PutObjectRequest(AWS_S3_QUARANTINE_BUCKET_NAME,fileName, fileToUpload));
fileToUpload.delete();
// start scan file
scanFile();
} ...
}
#Async
public void scanFile() {
log.info("Start scanning");
String queueUrl = sqs.getQueueUrl("bucket-antivirus").getQueueUrl();
List<Message> messages = sqs.receiveMessage(new ReceiveMessageRequest().withQueueUrl(queueUrl)
.withWaitTimeSeconds(20)).getMessages();
for (Message message : messages) {
// delete message
...
}
}
}
...
#EnableAsync
public class AppConfig {
#Bean
public TaskExecutor taskExecutor() {
ThreadPoolTaskExecutor taskExecutor = new ThreadPoolTaskExecutor();
taskExecutor.setMaxPoolSize(2);
taskExecutor.setQueueCapacity(200);
taskExecutor.afterPropertiesSet();
return taskExecutor;
}
}
But this seems still running synchronously. What is the problem here?

Answer 1

By default #Async and other Spring method-level annotations like #Transactional work only on the external, bean-to-bean method call. An internal method call from uploadImage() to scanFile() in the same bean won't trigger the proxy implementing the Spring behaviour. As per Spring docs:
In proxy mode (which is the default), only external method calls coming in through the proxy are intercepted. This means that self-invocation, in effect, a method within the target object calling another method of the target object, will not lead to an actual transaction at runtime even if the invoked method is marked with #Transactional. Also, the proxy must be fully initialized to provide the expected behaviour so you should not rely on this feature in your initialization code, i.e. #PostConstruct.
You could configure AspectJ to enable annotations on internal method calls, but it's usually easier to refactor the code.