Okay, I'm getting closer....
When I've first opened a browser and I invoke my controller, the AutoIntegrationFilter recognizes the Authentication object and calls ContextHolder.setContext(). This is called "extracted" at line 133 of AbstractIntegrationFilter:
Code:
// Populate authentication information
Object extracted = this.extractFromContainer(request);
if (extracted instanceof Authentication) {
if (logger.isDebugEnabled()) {
logger.debug(
"Authentication added to ContextHolder from container");
}
However, when I've logged off and log in again, this.extractFromContainer(request) returns null. So setContext() is never called.
Upon further investigation, I see that it returns null becuase there is no ACEGI_SECURITY_AUTHENTICATION token associated with the httpRequest's session.
-James