Fetching unknown profile returns 500 Internal Server Error

[AElmecker]

Observed Behavior

Fetching the profile for an unknown repository called foo:

GET http://localhost:8080/profile/foo

yields a 500 Internal Server Error with following response:

{
  "cause": null,
  "message": "Could not resolve repository metadata for foo."
}

The culprit seems to
be org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.config.ResourceMetadataHandlerMethodArgumentResolver
throwing an IllegalArgumentException when it is not able to resolve the repository.

Expected Behavior

A 404 Not Found is returned like

{
  "timestamp": "2025-05-14T19:51:01.935+00:00",
  "status": 404,
  "error": "Not Found",
  "path": "/profile/foo"
}

Steps To Reproduce

I created a small reproducer with can be checked out in this repository, the readme there also contains a similar description as this issue.

1. Start application
2. Fetch profile for unknown repository
   curl -X GET --location "http://localhost:8080/profile/foo" -H "Accept: application/json"
3. Retrieve 500 Internal Server Error

Spring Initializr Setup

• Project: Gradle - Kotlin
• Language: Java
• Spring Boot: 3.4.5
• Packaging: Jar
• Java: 21
• Dependencies
  • Spring Data JPA
  • Rest Repositories
  • H2 Database

Similar/Related issues

Some issue I already found that sounds similar is #2014, but that conversation came to an halt.

[AElmecker]

For anyone wondering how I workaround in the meantime:

@ControllerAdvice
public class PersistenceControllerAdvice {

	@ExceptionHandler(IllegalArgumentException.class)
	public ProblemDetail handleIllegalArgumentException(HttpServletRequest request, IllegalArgumentException ex) {
		if (ex.getMessage() != null && ex.getMessage().contains("Could not resolve repository metadata for")) {
			String uri = stripLeadingSlash(request.getRequestURI());
			return ProblemDetail.forStatusAndDetail(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND, "No static resource " + uri + ".");
		} else {
			throw ex;
		}
	}

	private static String stripLeadingSlash(String path) {
		if (path.startsWith("/")) {
			return path.substring(1);
		} else {
			return path;
		}
	}
}

Improvements/Suggestions to the workaround appreciated as well :)