Spring Controller sometimes has null @Autowired objects and seems not to be managed by Spring Context

I have a Spring controller defined like this with 2 request mappings, one using localDAO and the other using dependencyDAO. LocalDAO classes exist in my project and DependencyDAO classes are imported via maven dependency:

@RestController
@PreAuthorize("hasRole('USER')")
public class MyController

    @Autowired
    private localDAO LocalDAO; // dao classes exist in my project

    @Autowired
    private DependencyDAO dependencyDAO; // dao classes imported via maven dependency

...

    @RequestMapping("/getUsingLocalDAO")
    private String getUsingLocalDAO(
            @JsonProperty("param") String param) {
        localDAO.get(param) ... // <== this never null
    }

    @RequestMapping("/getUsingDependencyDAO")
    private String getUsingDependencyDAO(
            @JsonProperty("param") String param) {
        dependencyDAO.get(param) ... // <== this always null
    }

...

My dao beans are defined in another class:

@Configuration
public class DaoBeans {

    @Bean
    public LocalDAO localDAO() throws Exception {
        return new LocalDAOImpl();
    }

    @Bean
    public DependencyDAO dependencyDAO () throws Exception {
        return new DependencyDAOImpl();
    }

...

I am doing an $http.post from Angular like this:

    $http.post('getUsingLocalDAO', $.param($scope.parameters), {
        headers : {
            "content-type" : "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
        }
    }).success(function(data) {
        ...
    }).error(function(data) {
        ...

    $http.post('getUsingDependencyDAO', $.param($scope.parameters), {
        headers : {
            "content-type" : "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
        }
    }).success(function(data) {
        ...
    }).error(function(data) {
        ...

Both posts are identical except for the method they execute.

When stepping through the debugger I can see all the dao beans being created.

When I call getUsingLocalDAO everything works as expected. But, when I call getUsingDependencyDAO every @Autowired object is null.

I believe I am getting different instances of MyController. One managed by Spring and one not; or at least not instantiated properly.

I make these calls in succession. It doesn't matter what order they are in.

I tried injecting the servlet context via @Autowired to get the bean manually but it is always null in getUsingDependencyDAO as well.

I tried using application context aware and although I see the context setter being set in the debugger the context is always null in getUsingDependencyDAO.

If I wrap the two calls in a third request mapping like so everything works well (no null objects).

    @RequestMapping("/getUsingBothDAO")
    private String getUsingBothDAO(
            @JsonProperty("param") String param) {
        getLocalDAO(param);
        getDependencyDAO(param);
        ...
    }

I am using Spring-Boot 4.1.5. My project is 100% annotation driven and has no .xml configurations. The only difference between the two request mappings is that one uses a bean from a dependency and one does not.

I have been searching for an answer to this problem for 3 days and have not found anything close to what I am experiencing.

Can anyone shed some light as to what I am doing wrong? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.