How to fix a BeanCreationException in a Spring 3.2 java configuration after transforming it from a xml configuration?

Question

While migrating older Spring 2.5 code to Spring 3.2 I also changed the configuration from xml to java. This is not finished yet, because I don't want to change the web.xml for the moment.

But when trying to start the code (on Java 8) I got an exception for which I can't find a solution at the moment:

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'messageSource' defined in class path resource [com/tms/core/configuration/TMSApplicationConfig.class]: Initialization of bean failed

Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.transaction.config.internalTransactionAdvisor': Cannot resolve reference to bean 'org.springframework.transaction.annotation.AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource#0' while setting bean property 'transactionAttributeSource'
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.transaction.annotation.AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource#0': BeanPostProcessor before instantiation of bean failed

Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'exLoggerAdvisor' defined in class path resource [com/tms/core/configuration/TMSApplicationConfig.class]: Instantiation of bean failed
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Factory method [public org.springframework.aop.Advisor com.tms.core.configuration.TMSApplicationConfig.exLoggerAdvisor()] threw exception
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'exLoggerInterceptor' defined in class path resource [com/tms/core/configuration/TMSApplicationConfig.class]: Instantiation of bean failed
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Factory method [public util.ExceptionLogInterceptor com.tms.core.configuration.TMSApplicationConfig.exLoggerInterceptor()] threw exception
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at com.tms.core.configuration.TMSApplicationConfig.exLoggerInterceptor(TMSApplicationConfig.java:2397) ~[classes/:?]

The NullPointerException is clear to me, because it looks like the Environment of my config class is not initialized:

package com.tms.core.configuration;

@Configuration
@EnableAspectJAutoProxy
@ComponentScan("com.tms.core")
@ImportResource({"classpath:mailContext.xml", "classpath:pluginsContext.xml", "classpath:replicationContext.xml"})
@EnableSolrRepositories("com.tms.core.model.solr.repositories")
@EnableTransactionManagement(order = 35)
@PropertySource({"classpath:applicationContext.properties", "classpath:allowedContentTypes.properties"})
public class TMSApplicationConfig
 {
  // @Inject
  @Autowired(required = true)
  private Environment env;


  @Bean
  public static PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer placeholderConfig()
   {
    final PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer pspconf = new PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer();
    pspconf.setFileEncoding(StandardCharsets.UTF_8.name());
    pspconf.setPropertiesPersister(new EncryptedPropertiesReader());
    return pspconf;
   }


  @Bean
  public MessageSource messageSource()
   {
    final ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource rrbms = new ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource();
    rrbms.setBasenames("classpath:/tms-messages", "classpath:/tms-labels");
    rrbms.setCacheSeconds(1);
    rrbms.setUseCodeAsDefaultMessage(true);
    rrbms.setFallbackToSystemLocale(false);
    rrbms.setDefaultEncoding(StandardCharsets.UTF_8.name());
    return rrbms;
   }


   @Bean
   public PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor persistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor()
    {
     return new PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor();
    }


   @Bean
   public RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor requiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor()
    {
     return new RequiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor();
    }

   @Pointcut("execution (* com.tms..*.*(..)) and !execution (* com.tms.core.service.LBHttpSolrServer.*(..)) and !execution(* com.tms.core.configuration..*.*(..))")
   public void exLoggerPointcut()
    {
    }


   @Bean
   public ExceptionLogInterceptor exLoggerInterceptor()
    {
     final ExceptionLogInterceptor interceptor = new ExceptionLogInterceptor();
     interceptor.setUseDynamicLogger(true);
     interceptor.setHideProxyClassNames(true);
     interceptor.setLogAlways(Boolean.parseBoolean(this.env.getProperty("log.errorLogAlways")));   // this.env is null here!
     return interceptor;
    }


   @Bean
   public Advisor exLoggerAdvisor()
    {
     final AspectJExpressionPointcut pointcut = new AspectJExpressionPointcut();
     pointcut.setExpression("com.tms.core.configuration.TMSApplicationConfig.exLoggerPointcut()");
     final DefaultPointcutAdvisor advisor = new DefaultPointcutAdvisor(pointcut, exLoggerInterceptor());
     advisor.setOrder(10);
     return advisor;
    }

   // Removed all other beans!    

 }

For the case that it is important - I am starting still in an old way via applicationContext.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context" xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc" xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.2.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.2.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.2.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.2.xsd">

  <context:component-scan base-package="com.tms.core.configuration" />
  <mvc:annotation-driven />
  <tx:annotation-driven />

</beans>

Some things might be happen twice at the moment, but this is not the point, because the code transformation has not been finished yet.

My question is, how could I resolve the Exception? Which leads to the question why is the environment not initialized? Looks a bit like a Hen/Egg problem.

What is not clear to me are the exception parts about internalTransactionAdvisor and AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource.

I transformed the xml configuration to java as good as I could, but maybe I made a mistake by transforming the aop advises?

<bean id="exLoggerInterceptor" class="util.ExceptionLogInterceptor" p:useDynamicLogger="true" p:hideProxyClassNames="true" p:log-always="${log.errorLogAlways}" />

<aop:advisor advice-ref="exLoggerInterceptor" order="10" pointcut="execution (* com.tms..*.*(..)) and !execution (* com.tms.core.service.LBHttpSolrServer.*(..))" />

Update 1:

Adding !execution(* com.tms.core.configuration..*.*(..)) to the pointcut seems not to fix a possible Hen/Egg problem.

Update 2:

After replacing every this.env.getProperty() call with a static value I got an

java.lang.IllegalStateException: ApplicationEventMulticaster not initialized - call 'refresh' before multicasting events via the context

Which makes the whole thing a much bigger problem :(