Dependency-injection throws NullPointerException in Spring MVC - spring-mvc

Question

here is my problem: I'm working with SpringMVC and I get a NullPointerException on calling an #Autowired dependency.
Here is the #Service:
package x.y.z.service
#Repository("myService")
public class MyServiceImpl implements MyService {
/* ... */
}
The service is autowired everywhere in the application without problems, except here:
package x.y.z.utils
#Component
public class TestClass {
#Autowired
private MyService myService;
public TestClass() {
super();
}
public void tester() {
myService.find(1);
}
}
where the method tester() throws the NP Exception on myService. When tracing the logs I see that the bean is managed by Spring.
The application context file is pretty simple:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans:beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd">
<annotation-driven />
<interceptors>
<!-- ... -->
</interceptors>
<resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />
<!-- Resolves views selected for rendering by #Controllers to .jsp resources in the /WEB-INF/views directory -->
<beans:bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
<beans:property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/" />
<beans:property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
</beans:bean>
<!-- Imports user-defined #Controller beans that process client requests -->
<beans:import resource="controllers.xml" />
<beans:bean id="validator" class="org.springframework.validation.beanvalidation.LocalValidatorFactoryBean" />
</beans:beans>
And the referenced controllers.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context" xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx.xsd">
<!-- Scans within the base package of the application for #Components to
configure as beans -->
<context:component-scan base-package="x.y.z" />
<context:annotation-config />
</beans>
After a two days search I can't find anything helping. Am I missing something?
Thx

Answer 1

Please make sure that you have
<context:component-scan base-package="x.y.z"/>
In addition, please add:
<context:annotation-config/>
Update:
I'm sorry but your xml is incorrect in terms of schema and it is missing what I told you to add:
This is how your file should look like:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop
http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-3.0.xsd">
<context:annotation-config />
<context:component-scan base-package="x.y.z"></context:component-scan>
</beans>