org.hibernate.HibernateException: merge is not valid without active transaction

At first the applicationContext.xml is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
       xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
       xsi:schemaLocation="
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.0.xsd
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.0.xsd
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.0.xsd">

    <bean class="info.ems.config.EMSConfigurer"/>

    <bean id="passwordEncoder" class="org.acegisecurity.providers.encoding.Md5PasswordEncoder"/>

    <bean id="ems" class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionProxyFactoryBean">
    <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>        
    <property name="target">            
        <bean class="info.ems.EMSImpl" init-method="init">
            <property name="dao" ref="dao"/>
            <property name="passwordEncoder" ref="passwordEncoder"/>
            <property name="localeList" value="${ems.locales}"/>
            <property name="releaseVersion" value="${ems.version}"/>
            <property name="releaseTimestamp" value="${ems.timestamp}"/>
            <property name="emsHome" value="${ems.home}"/>
        </bean>
    </property>       
    </bean>   

    <bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTransactionManager">
    <property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="dataSource" class="info.ems.datasource.DataSourceFactory">
    <property name="driverClassName" value="${database.driver}"/>
    <property name="url" value="${database.url}"/>
    <property name="username" value="${database.username}"/>
    <property name="password" value="${database.password}"/>
    <property name="validationQuery" value="${database.validationQuery}"/>
    <property name="dataSourceJndiName" value="${database.datasource.jndiname}"/>
    </bean>     

    <tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="transactionManager" />

    <bean id="sessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean">
    <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
    <property name="configLocation">
            <value>/WEB-INF/hibernate.cfg.xml</value>
        </property>
    <property name="configurationClass">
        <value>org.hibernate.cfg.AnnotationConfiguration</value>
        </property>        
    <property name="hibernateProperties">
        <props>
            <prop key="hibernate.dialect">${hibernate.dialect}</prop>        
            <prop key="hibernate.show_sql">${hibernate.show_sql}</prop> 
            <prop key="hibernate.current_session_context_class">org.hibernate.context.ThreadLocalSessionContext</prop>
        </props>
    </property>        
    </bean>

    <bean id="dao" class="info.ems.hibernate.HibernateEMSDao" init-method="createSchema">
    <property name="hibernateTemplate">
        <bean class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTemplate">
            <property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory"/>
        </bean>
    </property>        
    <property name="schemaHelper">
        <bean class="info.ems.hibernate.SchemaHelper">                                
            <property name="driverClassName" value="${database.driver}"/>
            <property name="url" value="${database.url}"/>
            <property name="username" value="${database.username}"/>
            <property name="password" value="${database.password}"/>
            <property name="hibernateDialect" value="${hibernate.dialect}"/>   
            <property name="dataSourceJndiName" value="${database.datasource.jndiname}"/>
        </bean>                
    </property>
    </bean>       
</beans>

The service layer that is EMS.java interface:

public interface EMS extends UserDetailsService {

    public void saveUser(User user);
}

And its implementation EMSImpl.java:

@Service("emsImpl")
@Transactional(readOnly=true)
public class EMSImpl implements EMS {

    private final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(getClass());

    @Autowired
    @Qualifier("dao")
    private EMSDao dao;


    //some other code


    @Transactional(readOnly=false)
    public void saveUser(User user) {

    }
}

The interface dao is EMSDAO.java:

@Transactional(readOnly=true)
public interface EMSDao {

    public void saveUser(User user);
}

And its implementation HibernateEMSDao.java

@Repository("EMSDao")
public class HibernateEMSDao extends HibernateDaoSupport implements EMSDao {

    private final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(getClass());  

    private SchemaHelper schemaHelper;

    public void setSchemaHelper(SchemaHelper schemaHelper) {
        this.schemaHelper = schemaHelper;
    }

    @Transactional(readOnly=false)
    public synchronized void saveUser(final User user) {        
        Session session = getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession();
        session.merge(user);
    }


    public void createSchema() {        
        try {
            getHibernateTemplate().find("from User user where user.id = 1");
        } catch (Exception e) {
            logger.warn("expected database schema does not exist, will create. Error is: " + e.getMessage());
            schemaHelper.createSchema();
            User admin = new User();
            admin.setUsername("admin");
            admin.setName("Admin");
            admin.setEmail("admin");
            admin.setPassword("21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3");
            admin.setRoles(new HashSet<Role>(Arrays.asList(new Role("admin", "ADMINISTRATOR"))));
            logger.info("inserting default admin user into database");
            saveUser(admin);

            logger.info("schema creation complete");                        
            return;
        }
        logger.info("database schema exists, normal startup");              
    }
}

When I am deploying the war after inserting User admin I am getting this error:

12:40:11,111 INFO  [STDOUT] 2011-05-30 12:40:11,111 [ScannerThread] INFO [info.ems.datasource.DataSourceFac开发者_JAVA技巧tory] - Attempting to shut down embedded HSQLDB database.
12:40:11,217 INFO  [STDOUT] 2011-05-30 12:40:11,217 [ScannerThread] INFO [info.ems.datasource.DataSourceFactory] - Embedded HSQLDB database shut down successfully.
12:40:11,220 INFO  [STDOUT] 2011-05-30 12:40:11,218 [ScannerThread] ERROR [org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader] - Context initialization failed
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'ems' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Cannot create inner bean 'info.ems.EMSImpl#586f403e' of type [info.ems.EMSImpl] while setting bean property 'target'; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'info.ems.EMSImpl#586f403e' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Cannot resolve reference to bean 'dao' while setting bean property 'dao'; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'dao' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.hibernate.HibernateException: merge is not valid without active transaction

What I am doing wrong and is there anything I missed?

Thanks and regards.

Here is what may be happening. You declared method saveUser() @Transactional, however you call it from createSchema() which is not @Transactional. Therefore, you actually call not proxied method saveUser() and it fails. You best shot here is to use HibernateTemplate. Since createSchema() is init method @Transactional probably would not work on it.

Also notice that @Transactional on interface will have no effect.