[jsf] How to use PrimeFaces p:fileUpload? Listener method is never invoked or UploadedFile is null / throws an error / not usable

I'm trying to upload a file using PrimeFaces, but the fileUploadListener method isn't being invoked after the upload finishes.

Here is the view:

<h:form>
    <p:fileUpload fileUploadListener="#{fileUploadController.handleFileUpload}"
        mode="advanced" 
        update="messages"
        sizeLimit="100000" 
        allowTypes="/(\.|\/)(gif|jpe?g|png)$/"/>

    <p:growl id="messages" showDetail="true"/>
</h:form>

And the bean:

@ManagedBean
@RequestScoped
public class FileUploadController {

    public void handleFileUpload(FileUploadEvent event) {
        FacesMessage msg = new FacesMessage("Succesful", event.getFile().getFileName() + " is uploaded.");
        FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addMessage(null, msg);
    }

}

I've placed a breakpoint on the method, but it's never called. When using mode="simple" and ajax="false", it is been invoked, but I want it to work in the advanced mode. I'm using Netbeans and Glassfish 3.1.

I had the same issue, due to the fact that I had all the configuration that describe in this post, but in my case was because I had two jquery imports (one of them was primefaces's query) which caused conflicts to upload files.

See Primefaces Jquery conflict

With JBoss 7.2(Undertow) and PrimeFaces 6.0 org.primefaces.webapp.filter.FileUploadFilter should be removed from web.xml and context param file uploader should be set to native:

<context-param>
    <param-name>primefaces.UPLOADER</param-name>
    <param-value>native</param-value>
</context-param>

For people using Tomee or Tomcat and can't get it working, try to create context.xml in META-INF and add allowCasualMultipartParsing="true"

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Context allowCasualMultipartParsing="true">
  <!-- empty or not depending your project -->
</Context>

One point I noticed with Primefaces 3.4 and Netbeans 7.2:

Remove the Netbeans auto-filled parameters for function handleFileUpload i.e. (event) otherwise event could be null.

<h:form>
    <p:fileUpload fileUploadListener="#{fileUploadController.handleFileUpload(event)}"
        mode="advanced" 
        update="messages"
        sizeLimit="100000" 
        allowTypes="/(\.|\/)(gif|jpe?g|png)$/"/>

    <p:growl id="messages" showDetail="true"/>
</h:form>

Looks like javax.faces.SEPARATOR_CHAR must not be equal to _

You are using prettyfaces too? Then set dispatcher to FORWARD:

<filter-mapping>
   <filter-name>PrimeFaces FileUpload Filter</filter-name>
   <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
   <dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>

bean.xhtml

    <h:form enctype="multipart/form-data">    
<p:outputLabel value="Choose your file" for="submissionFile" />
                <p:fileUpload id="submissionFile"
                    value="#{bean.file}"
                    fileUploadListener="#{bean.uploadFile}" mode="advanced"
                    auto="true" dragDropSupport="false" update="messages"
                    sizeLimit="100000" fileLimit="1" allowTypes="/(\.|\/)(pdf)$/" />

</h:form>

Bean.java

@ManagedBean

@ViewScoped public class Submission implements Serializable {

private UploadedFile file;

//Gets
//Sets

public void uploadFasta(FileUploadEvent event) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException, InterruptedException {

    String content = IOUtils.toString(event.getFile().getInputstream(), "UTF-8");

    String filePath = PATH + "resources/submissions/" + nameOfMyFile + ".pdf";

    MyFileWriter.writeFile(filePath, content);

    FacesMessage message = new FacesMessage(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_INFO,
            event.getFile().getFileName() + " is uploaded.", null);
    FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addMessage(null, message);

}

}

web.xml

    <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.xhtml</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<filter>
    <filter-name>PrimeFaces FileUpload Filter</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.primefaces.webapp.filter.FileUploadFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>PrimeFaces FileUpload Filter</filter-name>
    <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>

I had same issue with primefaces 5.3 and I went through all the points described by BalusC with no result. I followed his advice of debugging FileUploadRenderer#decode() and I discovered that my web.xml was unproperly set

<context-param>
  <param-name>primefaces.UPLOADER</param-name>
  <param-value>auto|native|commons</param-value>
</context-param>

The param-value must be 1 of these 3 values but not all of them!! The whole context-param section can be removed and the default will be auto

Neither of the suggestions here were helpful for me. So I had to debug primefaces and found the reason of the problem was:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: No multipart config for servlet fileUpload

Then I have added section into my faces servlet in the web.xml. So that has fixed the problem:

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>main</servlet-name>

        <servlet-class>org.apache.myfaces.webapp.MyFacesServlet</servlet-class>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
        <multipart-config>
            <location>/tmp</location>
            <max-file-size>20848820</max-file-size>
            <max-request-size>418018841</max-request-size>
            <file-size-threshold>1048576</file-size-threshold>
        </multipart-config>
    </servlet>