Annoying view expired error

[Tanya Ruttenberg]

I am relatively new to java web programming. I first learned how to do this on seam 2 with a seam-gen generated app. It's taken me awhile, but I finally realized that seam 3 is not exactly a shiny new version of seam 2, and that what I used to think of as my "seam app" is, in the next generation of j2ee, a "j2ee 6 app".

With that said, I have embarked on my first j2ee 6 app today. It's a new paradigm and I'm trying to figure it out.

One thing that is driving me nuts is that I keep getting a view expired error message! My app has one page, index.xhtml. It has an input field for a form. Every time I re-deploy I get the view expired exception and the most reliable way I've figured out how to get rid of it is to open a new tab. Obviously not the end of the world, but it's very annoying.

Why did this never happen with my seam 2 app, and how can I get it to stop in my j2ee 6 app! I sense that in the Brave New World I am relying on JSF for presentation which is historically a POST-oriented framework, and previously I relied on seam 2, which is a GET -oriented framework. Or something like that.

Based on other questions I've seen on forums, I sense this paradigm shift is confusing a lot of begining/intermediate level developers who first learned their trade on seam 2.

My index.xhtml

<f:metadata>
  <f:viewParam id="id" name="sitecode"value="#{contactProducer.siteCode}" />
</f:metadata>

<h:messages />
<h:form id="cf">
  <h:panelGrid columns="3">
    <h:outputLabel for="contact">Enter site code:</h:outputLabel>
    <h:inputText id="contact" value="#{contactProducer.siteCode}" />
    <h:message for="contact" />
  </h:panelGrid>
  <h:commandButton id="find" value="Find Site Code"  />
</h:form>

<rich:panel rendered="#{not empty contactProducer.contactDoors}">
  <f:facet name="header">
    <h:outputText value="Site Code #{contactProducer.contactDoors.siteCode}" />
  </f:facet>
  <h:panelGrid columns="1">

    <h:outputText id="nm1" value="#{contactProducer.contactDoors.name}" />
    <h:outputText id="pgr1" value="#{contactProducer.contactDoors.pager}" />
    <h:outputText id="adr1" value="#{contactProducer.contactDoors.addr1}" />
    <h:outputText id="adr2" value="#{contactProducer.contactDoors.addr2}"
      rendered="#{not empty contactProducer.contactDoors.addr2}" />
    <h:outputText id="csz"
      value="#{contactProducer.contactDoors.city}, #{contactProducer.contactDoors.state} #{contactProducer.contactDoors.zip}" />

  </h:panelGrid>
</rich:panel>

and my managed bean, or backing bean, or whatever the heck it is. It's a java class in any case :-)

@Named
@RequestScoped
public class ContactProducer {

    @Inject
    private EntityManager em;

    String siteCode;

    Doors contactDoors;

    @Produces
    public Doors getContactDoors() {
        System.out.println("trying to get contact doors");
        if (siteCode == null) {
            return null;
        }
        return em.find(Doors.class, findDoorsIdBySiteCode());
    }

    private Integer findDoorsIdBySiteCode() {
            System.out.println("findDoorsIdBySiteCode " + siteCode);
            if (siteCode != null) {
                return (Integer) em
                        .createQuery(
                                "SELECT d.contactId FROM Doors d"
                                        + " WHERE d.siteCode=:sitecode")
                        .setParameter("sitecode", siteCode)
                        .getSingleResult();
            }
        return null;
    }

    public String getSiteCode() {
        System.out.println("getSiteCode " + siteCode);
        return siteCode;
    }

    public void setSiteCode(String siteCode) {
        System.out.println("setSiteCode1 " + siteCode);
        if (siteCode != null) {
            siteCode = siteCode.trim();
        }
        if (siteCode.length() < 4) {
            siteCode = StringUtils.leftPad(siteCode, 4, "0");
        }
        this.siteCode = siteCode;
    }

}

I've got an Entity bean called Doors.java. I'm not going to post it because it doesn't contain anything interesting.
I'm deploying Jboss AS 7 if that matters.

Thanks for any help.
TDR