title: Spring Boot with ThymeLeaf error: Circular view path: would dispatch back to the current handler URL again. Check your ViewResolver setup
body: <p>I'm trying to get a basic project using Spring Boot and Thymeleaf set up, and add a RequestMapping to a basic Thymeleaf template. However, I'm running into the error message in the title which I'm not sure how to resolve.</p>
  
  <p>I first used the <a href="https://start.spring.io/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Spring Boot Initializer</a> to create a new project with web (spring-boot-starter-web) and ThymeLeaf (spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf) dependencies. After downloading the Maven project and running <code>mvn spring-boot:run</code>, I was able to successfully start my server. </p>
  
  <p>Next, I tried to add a RequestMapping to a ThymeLeaf template. I created a new controller called <code>GreetingController</code> in <code>src/main/java/com/example</code> with the following code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>package com.example;
  
  import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
  import org.springframework.ui.Model;
  import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
  import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam;
  
  @Controller
  public class GreetingController {
  
      @RequestMapping("/greeting")
      public String greeting(@RequestParam(value="name", required=false, defaultValue="World") String name, Model model) {
          model.addAttribute("name", name);
          return "greeting";
      }
  
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Additionally, under <code>src/main/resources/templates</code>, I added my basic <code>greeting.html</code> template:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE HTML&gt;
  &lt;html xmlns:th="http://www.thymeleaf.org"&gt;
  &lt;head&gt;
      &lt;title&gt;Getting Started: Serving Web Content&lt;/title&gt;
      &lt;meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /&gt;
  &lt;/head&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
      &lt;p th:text="'Hello, ' + ${name} + '!'" /&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now, when I re-run the server, I get the following exception when trying to go to <code>localhost:8080/greeting</code>:</p>
  
  <pre><code>javax.servlet.ServletException: Circular view path [greeting]: would dispatch back to the current handler URL [/greeting] again. Check your ViewResolver setup! (Hint: This may be the result of an unspecified view, due to default view name generation.)
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.prepareForRendering(InternalResourceView.java:205) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.renderMergedOutputModel(InternalResourceView.java:145) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:303) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1271) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.processDispatchResult(DispatcherServlet.java:1037) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:980) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:897) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:970) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:861) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:622) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:846) ~[spring-webmvc-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:729) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:230) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52) ~[tomcat-embed-websocket-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:192) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.springframework.web.filter.RequestContextFilter.doFilterInternal(RequestContextFilter.java:99) ~[spring-web-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107) ~[spring-web-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:192) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.springframework.web.filter.HttpPutFormContentFilter.doFilterInternal(HttpPutFormContentFilter.java:105) ~[spring-web-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107) ~[spring-web-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:192) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.springframework.web.filter.HiddenHttpMethodFilter.doFilterInternal(HiddenHttpMethodFilter.java:81) ~[spring-web-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107) ~[spring-web-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:192) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter.doFilterInternal(CharacterEncodingFilter.java:197) ~[spring-web-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107) ~[spring-web-4.3.6.RELEASE.jar:4.3.6.RELEASE]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:192) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:198) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:96) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:474) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:140) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:79) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:87) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:349) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:783) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:66) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:798) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1434) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:49) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1153) [na:1.8.0]
      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628) [na:1.8.0]
      at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
      at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:785) [na:1.8.0]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It seems like the issue is that Thymeleaf is not being recognized properly or something, despite it being added as a dependency in the pom. From what I read in other threads online, the error is happening because Spring thinks that the <code>/greeting</code> path should direct to itself, due to the <code>return "greeting";</code> statement at the end of the method. However, my understanding is that this is actually supposed to be a reference to <code>greeting.html</code>, the ThymeLeaf template.</p>
  
  <p>What exactly am I doing wrong?</p>