Setter of application scoped bean fails to set value - jsf

Question

I'm making page using Primefaces with form with ability to ajax-upload image and preview it before submitting whole form.
To achieve this I made dialog outside main form:
<p:dialog id="imageDlg" header="Load Image" modal="true"
widgetVar="imageUploadWidget">
<h:form id="imageForm" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<p:fileUpload mode="advanced" auto="true" sizeLimit="9999999"
allowTypes="/(\.|\/)(gif|jpe?g|png)$/"
fileUploadListener="#{pageBean.imageUploadHandler}">
</p:fileUpload>
</h:form>
</p:dialog>
Inside main form there is p:graphicImage component to display just uploaded image and button to show dialog. Page is backed by view scoped bean (PageBean), but to pass StreamedContent to p:graphicImage value bean should be session or application scoped (because method called multiply times). So I made second application scoped bean (ImageBean) only for this purpose.
<p:graphicImage value="#{imageBean.imageStreamedContent()}"/>
<p:commandButton value="Choose image" type="button"
onclick="imageUploadWidget.show();"/>
Code of ImageBean:
#ApplicationScoped
#ManagedBean
public class ImagesBean implements Serializable {
private byte[] image;
//getter & setter
public StreamedContent imageStreamedContent() {
FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
if (context.getCurrentPhaseId() == PhaseId.RENDER_RESPONSE) {
return new DefaultStreamedContent();
} else {
return new DefaultStreamedContent(new ByteArrayInputStream(getImage()));
}
}
}
The next part is fileUploadListener. Idea is simple — set corresponding fields of PageBean (to save it later on form submit) of ImageBean (to show it after partial refresh) and update part of main form:
#ManagedBean
#ViewScoped
public class PageBean implements Serializable {
#ManagedProperty(value="#{imageBean}")
ImagesBean imagesBean;
...
public void imageUploadHandler(FileUploadEvent event) {
getImagesBean().setImage(event.getFile().getContents());
RequestContext.getCurrentInstance().update("form:tabPanel1");
}
Here comes strange thing. Inside setImage() method everything is OK - field is set, getter works fine. But then page refresh, imageBean.getImage() inside imageBean.imageStreamedContent() returns null.
More accurate — it returns old value, as if setter was never called or was called on another instance of bean. I checked it on another String field: initialized it in ImageBean constructor, in handler invoked setter with another value and refreshed part of main form. Same thing: old value from constructor.
I think, that I'm missing something about bean life cycle or scope specific. Or maybe there is less complicated way to implement this task?

Answer 1

There is a problem with using StreamedContent in Primefaces for p:graphicImage and p:media.
You can see Cagatay Civici 's comments on this topic in Primefaces forum here.
In my experience, when I had the slimier(more or less) problem This and This answers by BalusC helped me.
I used a saperate Servlet instead of Managedbean to stream the dynamic content to p:media (in mycase).
Here is my code for your reference(if you need any):
PreviewFileServlet.java
#WebServlet("/PreviewFile")
public class PreviewFileServlet extends HttpServlet {
public PreviewFileServlet() {
super();
}
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
ServletContext context = request.getServletContext();
String path = request.getParameter("PREVIEW_FILE_PATH");
logger.info("Received pathe for Preview:"+path);
try{
if(null!=path){
java.io.File f = new java.io.File(path);
if(f.exists()){
FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(f);
byte b[] = new byte[(int)f.length()];
fin.read(b);
response.setContentLength(b.length);
response.setContentType(context.getMimeType(path));
response.getOutputStream().write(b);
response.getOutputStream().close();
logger.info("File sent successfully for Preview.");
}
else{
logger.warn("File sepecified by path:-"+path+"-:, NOT found");
}
}
}catch(Exception e){
}
}
/**
* #see HttpServlet#doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
*/
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
doGet(request, response);
}
}
Facelet Code
<p:media value="/PreviewFile?PREVIEW_FILE_PATH=#{fileManager.previewFilePath}" />
Hope this helps.
And there are lot of questions on this topic of StreamedContent in stackoverflow itself, go through them once.