How to read saved instance in spring method with @Transactional

I'm using @Transactional annotation for the rollback purpose, I've added in my controller methods in my Spring-Boot application, so my saves will only happen when everything happened without any error, this is how I've added the annotation:

    @PostMapping(value = "/add/people")
    @Transactional
    public ResponseEntity<?> addGroundToPerson(@RequestParam("ground") String newGround, @RequestParam("person") String person {
        try {
             personService.addPerson(person, ground);
             Ground addedGround = groundService.addGround(pnewGround);
        } catch (NoSuchElementException e) {
            return new ResponseEntity<>(new CustomErrorType(e.getMessage()), HttpStatus.NOT_IMPLEMENTED);
    }

addPersonToGround is saving that person in database and with his address.

addGround is saving the new ground in database with that person reference, and the ground itself has a address.

My Service method that is failing:

public void registerAddress(HasAddress hasAddress) throws NoSuchElementException {

        Address address = hasAddress.getAddress());
        State state = address.getState();

        //here's where I'm getting the error
        State dbState = searchState(state); //stateRepository.getStateByName();

        address.setState(state);
        hasAddress.setAddress(address);

        addressRepository.save(address);
    }

RegisterAddress is being called two times, the first one works fine, but because I've saved at the first time, the second one doesn't work. (keep in mind that my code is way bigger than this one and I can't just take the save off, and I've tried, trust me).

I've tried putting the @Transactional in the service layer but it sends me this error:
> org.hibernate.TransientPropertyValueException: object references an
> unsaved transient instance

It's working fine when I just save objects, but it doesn't work fine when I have to get a object after saving it. And that's my problem, The best example I have is this:

1. I have a address in each person, and it has the state in it.
2. I want to reuse the state for each address if it's the same.
3. I register a person and it register a new address (somethimes using states that already exists in the database).
4. I try to register the ground and when I try to get that state to reuse it I get a error:
   > nested exception is org.hibernate.TransactionException: Transaction
   > was marked for rollback only; cannot commit

I think that's happening because when I "save" the object for the first time it doesn't commit, so it stays transient, and I just can't get a transient object. I'm trying to make all the logic and save at the end of it, or rollback if it occours some exception, but I'm getting that error because of the annotation.

So many things wrong with this. Let me start off with the fact you've put @Transactional in the Controller layer instead of the Service layer. Your method's logic should also be in the Service layer. This - rollbackFor = Exception.class isn't really necessary because Spring puts rollbackFor = { RuntimeException.class, Error.class } by default on all methods annotated with @Transactional. And now the reason you're getting the mentioned exception is because you've put a try/catch block in there. Spring's transactions are marked as rollback only when an exception is thrown regardless if it was caught. You have to either remove the try/catch or find a way to do it outside of the transaction.