prolems with DB "save" with @LastModifiedDate and @LastModifiedBy

Question

I've setup Spring Data JPA Auditing as it is described in the docs. I think its configured correctly because on insert, i have all 4 fields (created, createdBy, modified, modifiedBy) filled in correctly.

Now the interesting part. On modification of the entity, everything seems to be running well. I debugged through all the Spring Auditing classes up to the point where in AuditingHandler.java this line:

LOGGER.debug("Touched {} - Last modification at {} by {}", new Object[] { target, defaultedNow, defaultedAuditor });

Looks completely ok. The target has the modified Fields set correctly and i cant see any issues BUT in the database, the two fields wont get updated. (value is still the creation date and user). So somehow it wont get saved. Of course all the other fields get updated including the JPA Version field. So everything but the modified* fields.

I am clueless. Anyone who can help me further how to debug that?

I am using Spring-Data-JPA in 1.9.0 and Spring 4.2.1 together with OpenJPA in the persistence backend.

UPDATE

I think i pinpointed the problem but there is a bug either in OpenJPA oder Spring-Data JPA.

The following class BeanWrapper.java from Spring-Data runs this code:

/*
 * (non-Javadoc)
 * @see org.springframework.data.mapping.PersistentPropertyAccessor#setProperty(org.springframework.data.mapping.PersistentProperty, java.lang.Object)
 */
public void setProperty(PersistentProperty<?> property, Object value) {

    Assert.notNull(property, "PersistentProperty must not be null!");

    try {

        if (!property.usePropertyAccess()) {

            ReflectionUtils.makeAccessible(property.getField());
            ReflectionUtils.setField(property.getField(), bean, value);
            return;
        }

        Method setter = property.getSetter();

        if (property.usePropertyAccess() && setter != null) {

            ReflectionUtils.makeAccessible(setter);
            ReflectionUtils.invokeMethod(setter, bean, value);
        }

    } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
        throw new MappingException("Could not set object property!", e);
    }
}

JpaPersistentPropertyImpl (property) has usePropertyAccess attribute set to false, thus changing the modified field directly via reflection but this wont get the attribute marked dirty in OpenJPA. When modifying the value to true in the debugger, forcing to use the setter(), everything works fine.

So somewhere is a problem with the way OpenJPA <-> Spring Data interaction. Seems that OpenJPA doesnt like reflection attribute changes and insists on setter().

Is there a way to get this usePropertyAccess property to true?

CONCLUSION

Every journey needs to end. I found out that using @AccessType(AccessType.Type.PROPERTY) on my modified*/created* fields solves the issue. I am not quite sure that the current default -> AccessType.Type.Field is the most sensible one in Spring-Data... at least its not for OpenJPA. IMO this one is pretty hard to to find for non-experienced JPA/Spring developers. Perhaps a note in the documentation would be helpful. I have never used this AccessType property in my life and i am using Spring with OpenJPA for quite some time...