Redis Cache Issue – Why @Cacheable Didn’t Work (and Fix)

Hi 👋, I’m Anandharaj.

Today’s learning is about Redis Cache in Spring Boot.

We faced an interesting issue at work (Project) where @Cacheable didn’t behave as expected.

👉 The key takeaway: Avoid self-invocation when using @Cacheable methods.

Let me explain with code examples below.

❌ Non‑Working Code (Self‑Invocation Issue)

In the below snippet, the processData() method calls another @Cacheable method internalGetData() inside the same class.

Because it’s an internal call, Spring’s proxy is bypassed, so caching never happens.

✅ Working Code (Fixed with separate bean)

To fix it, we separated the cached method into another Spring-managed bean (another class).

Now the call goes through the proxy and caching works as expected.

💡 Key Takeaways:

✔️ Avoid calling @Cacheable methods from within the same class.

✔️ Move the cached method to another Spring bean.

✔️ This ensures the proxy logic and caching work correctly.

Java Bean Bag