SpringBoot Binding of entities to entity properties in MVC controller is no longer working with SB 2.3.1/2.2.8

Given: Invoice and InvoiceItem as JPA entities. InvoiceItem has property invoice with type Invoice.

Calling /invoice/addItem?invoice=1 did bind the invoice with the given id to InvoiceItem.invoice with Spring Boot 2.3.0 and 2.2.7.

Since the update to 2.3.1 or 2.2.8 the following error occurs:

2020-06-25 11:50:19.824  WARN 98947 --- [    Test worker] .w.s.m.s.DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver : Resolved [org.springframework.validation.BindException: org.springframework.validation.BeanPropertyBindingResult: 1 errors
Field error in object 'invoiceItem' on field 'invoice': rejected value [1]; codes [typeMismatch.invoiceItem.invoice,typeMismatch.invoice,typeMismatch.ch.itds.demo.mvcbindingissue.domain.Invoice,typeMismatch]; arguments [org.springframework.context.support.DefaultMessageSourceResolvable: codes [invoiceItem.invoice,invoice]; arguments []; default message [invoice]]; default message [Failed to convert property value of type 'java.lang.String' to required type 'ch.itds.demo.mvcbindingissue.domain.Invoice' for property 'invoice'; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot convert value of type 'java.lang.String' to required type 'ch.itds.demo.mvcbindingissue.domain.Invoice' for property 'invoice': no matching editors or conversion strategy found]]

Example project: https://github.com/itds-ch/spring-boot-mvc-binding-issue

I created the branches spring-boot-2.3.0 and spring-boot-2.3.1 to simplify the verification. The only difference of these branches is the spring boot version.

Comment From: wilkinsona

Thanks for the sample. The problem's caused by a regression in Spring Data's converter registration. It's been fixed in the latest snapshots so the tests in your sample will pass with these changes:

diff --git a/build.gradle b/build.gradle
index 4d5d550..4937418 100644
--- a/build.gradle
+++ b/build.gradle
@@ -8,8 +8,11 @@ group = 'ch.itds.demo'
 version = '0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'
 sourceCompatibility = '14'

+ext['spring-data-releasetrain.version'] = 'Neumann-BUILD-SNAPSHOT'
+
 repositories {
        mavenCentral()
+       maven { url 'https://repo.spring.io/snapshot' }
 }

 dependencies {

Alternatively, you could downgrade to Neumann-RELEASE:

diff --git a/build.gradle b/build.gradle
index 4d5d550..7388261 100644
--- a/build.gradle
+++ b/build.gradle
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@ group = 'ch.itds.demo'
 version = '0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'
 sourceCompatibility = '14'

+ext['spring-data-releasetrain.version'] = 'Neumann-RELEASE'
+
 repositories {
        mavenCentral()
 }

We'll pick up the fix which will be in Spring Data Neumann-SR2 in due course.

Comment From: mkobel

Thank you for your rapid response. The suggested change works for me.