Taken from http://blog.timmattison.com/archives/2012/04/19/tips-for-debugging-springs-transactional-annotation/

DebugUtils.java

class DebugUtils {
  private static final boolean transactionDebugging = true;
  private static final boolean verboseTransactionDebugging = true;

  public static void showTransactionStatus(String message) {
      System.out.println(((transactionActive()) ? "[+] " : "[-] ") + message);
  }

  // Some guidance from: http://java.dzone.com/articles/monitoring-declarative-transac?page=0,1
  public static boolean transactionActive() {
      try {
          ClassLoader contextClassLoader = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader();
          Class tsmClass = contextClassLoader.loadClass("org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionSynchronizationManager");
          Boolean isActive = (Boolean) tsmClass.getMethod("isActualTransactionActive", null).invoke(null, null);

          return isActive;
      } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
      } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
      } catch (SecurityException e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
      } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
      } catch (InvocationTargetException e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
      } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
      }

      // If we got here it means there was an exception
      throw new IllegalStateException("ServerUtils.transactionActive was unable to complete properly");
  }

  public static void transactionRequired(String message) {
      // Are we debugging transactions?
      if (!transactionDebugging) {
          // No, just return
          return;
      }

      // Are we doing verbose transaction debugging?
      if (verboseTransactionDebugging) {
          // Yes, show the status before we get to the possibility of throwing an exception
          showTransactionStatus(message);
      }

      // Is there a transaction active?
      if (!transactionActive()) {
          // No, throw an exception
          throw new IllegalStateException("Transaction required but not active [" + message + "]");
      }
  }
}