title: Spring Security AuthenticationException persistent?
body: <p>I'm using Spring MVC and Spring Security on a project, and am implementing a login form with it.  I've run into a sort of strange behaviour, which I wouldn't expect, and I was wondering if there is a way to avoid it.</p>
  
  <p>When there is an authentication error on the login form, I have a method in my controller to handle it:</p>
  
  <pre><code>@RequestMapping(value="/failed", method = RequestMethod.GET)
  public String showLoginFailurePage(Model model, HttpServletRequest request) {
      String authExClass = "";
      AuthenticationException authEx = (AuthenticationException) request.getSession().getAttribute(WebAttributes.AUTHENTICATION_EXCEPTION);
  
      if (authEx != null) {
        authExClass = authEx.getClass().getSimpleName();
      }
      model.addAttribute("authExClass", authExClass);
      return LOGIN_PAGE;
    }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This works initially, allowing me to display an error when an authentication error occurs.  However, if I refresh the page, I would expect that the AuthenticationException would no longer be attached to the session, and thus I wouldn't display an error to the user.  However, it seems that the exception persists beyond a refresh.  Do I have an incorrect assumption?  Should I not be using my request object this way?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!
  idbentley</p>