Spring Boot 2.3.x – How to apply a projection in a custom @RestController?

I am trying to apply projection on an entity returned from a custom controller annotated @RestController.

@RequestMapping(method = GET, value = "customer-api/students/viewProfile")
public @ResponseBody
ResponseEntity<?> fetchProfile(PersistentEntityResourceAssembler resourceAssembler) {

    Student student = studentRepo.findByCreatedBy(accessToken.getSubject());

    if (student != null) {
        return new ResponseEntity<>(resourceAssembler.toModel(student), HttpStatus.OK);
    } else {
        return new ResponseEntity<>(null, HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND);
    }

}

But I am getting an infinite recursion exception

org.springframework.http.converter.HttpMessageNotWritableException: Could not write JSON: Infinite recursion (StackOverflowError); nested exception is com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException: Infinite recursion (StackOverflowError) (through reference chain: org.springframework.data.jpa.mapping.JpaPersistentEntityImpl["idProperty"]->org.springframework.data.jpa.mapping.JpaPersistentPropertyImpl["owner"]->org.springframework.data.jpa.mapping.JpaPersistentEntityImpl["idProperty"]->org.springframework.data.jpa.mapping.JpaPersistentPropertyImpl["owner"]

This code works fine in Spring Boot 1.5.17 (I can apply projections and even get HAL formatted JSON) but it breaks in Spring 2.3.x.

So what I essentially want is the functionality of a Spring Data REST exported controller like projections and HAL formatted JSON. Is that possible to do in a custom controller?

I found a similar question here but it didnt help me.

Edit 1:

There is no bi-directional relationship on Student entity. Also I am using the PersistentEntityResourceAssembler to assemble the Student entity for response body which will render any @ManyToOne association as links as explained by Oliver Gierke in this answer so I am not sure how recursion is possible

PersistentEntityResourceAssembler – which is usually injected into the controller method. It renders a single entity in a Spring Data REST way, which means that associations pointing to managed types will be rendered as links etc.

Answer

For anyone having the same issue, I fixed it by upgrading to Spring Boot 2.5.5 and the code above now works