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 unused 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 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 property to never.

Although ON_CONTEXT_SWITCH is the default pause mode, you still have the option to enable context pausing for all usage scenarios (including context switches) by setting the spring.test.context.cache.pause property to always.