Context Pausing

As of Spring Framework 7.0, an ApplicationContext stored in the context cache (see Context Caching) may be paused when it is no longer actively in use and automatically restarted the next time the context is retrieved from the cache. Specifically, the latter will restart all auto-startup beans in the application context, effectively restoring the lifecycle state. This ensures that background processes within the context are not actively running while the context is not used by tests. For example, JMS listener containers, scheduled tasks, and any other components in the context that implement Lifecycle or SmartLifecycle will be in a "stopped" state until the context is used again by a test. Note, however, that SmartLifecycle components can opt out of pausing by returning false from SmartLifecycle#isPauseable().

You can control whether inactive application contexts should be paused by setting the PauseMode to one of the following supported values.

The PauseMode defaults to ON_CONTEXT_SWITCH, but it can be changed from the command line or a build script by setting a JVM system property named spring.test.context.cache.pause to one of the supported values (case insensitive). As an alternative, you can set the property via the SpringProperties mechanism.

For example, if you want inactive application contexts to always be paused, you can switch from the default ON_CONTEXT_SWITCH mode to ALWAYS by setting the spring.test.context.cache.pause system property to always.

Similarly, if you encounter issues with Lifecycle components that cannot or should not opt out of pausing, or if you discover that your test suite runs more slowly due to the pausing and restarting of application contexts, you can disable the pausing feature by setting the spring.test.context.cache.pause system property to never.