Sample project to show a spring-kafka-retry issue

Problem

When a @KafkaListener is started automatically, spring-kafka's non-blocking retry works as expected. However if the listener is manually started (autoStartup=false), this does not seem to be the case.

Tested with spring boot 3.3.2 / spring-kafka 3.2.2

Testing

Run the application by calling:

./mvnw clean verify -DautoStartup.enabled=true

to test retries with autoStartup enabled: the test will pass.

Running:

./mvnw clean verify -DautoStartup.enabled=false

will launch the @KafkaListener with autoStartup disabled. An @EventListener is used to start the listener once the application has started. Here the test will not pass, since no retries are happening.

Fix

This answer solved the problem: retry & dlq consumers are also MessageListenerContainers that need to be started as well.

Code is now updated and working as expected.