Question: I've got a sample project which uses Spring Data Neo4j's advanced mapping using aspectj. It's failing in a test with NullPointerException due to the entityState attribute being null at the time when the entity is being persisted.

I can also replicate this when the server itself is spun up and I execute: 

```
curl -i -X POST -H "Content-Type:application/json" -d '{  "firstName" : "Test",  "lastName" : "Person" }' http://localhost:8080/people

```

The project is at <https://github.com/dhallam/spring-data-neo4j-demo> and the Travis build with the logs is at <https://travis-ci.org/dhallam/spring-data-neo4j-demo/builds/22538972>.

I'm not sure whether I'm missing something or there is a bug that would require me to raise a JIRA issue.

Any ideas? Many thanks in advance.

**Edit 1:**

Versions: Java v1.7; SDNeo4j v3.1.0.M1; SDRest v2.1.0.M1; Neo4j v2.0.1; Jetty v9.0.5.v20130815; AspectJ v1.7.4

Tried adding @JsonIgnoreProperties to the Person (@NodeEntity)from Michael's comment below and it's still failing. The bit of code that is failing is when I run:

```
Person p = new Person();
// setters ...
p.persist();

```

The `persist()` calls

```
public <T extends NodeBacked> T NodeBacked.persist() {
    return (T)this.entityState.persist();
}

```

but `entityState` is null.

Answer: 
Figured it out. The `Neo4jConfig` class previously extended the `Neo4jConfiguration` class. With the introduction of aspects, that superclass needed to be updated to be `Neo4jAspectConfiguration` to provide the additional `neo4jRelationshipBacking` and `neo4jNodeBacking` beans.

I've updated the github reference project at <https://github.com/dhallam/spring-data-neo4j-demo> and the build is passing.
Which versions do you use?

You can use @JsonIgnore for the entityState attribute.

See: <http://forum.spring.io/forum/spring-projects/data/nosql/110063-unable-to-convert-nodeentity-object-to-json-with-jackson>

```
@JsonIgnoreProperties({"entityState", "nodeId", "persistentState", "relationshipTo", "template"})

```