I have a piece of code completely reactive, i check in database if value exists, if not i call a third api.

The problem i go in switchIfEmpty and then i throw the exception because the data is found in mongo DB, something is going wrong but i dont understand why, any idea?

@Log4j2
@AllArgsConstructor
public class GetTokenizationInformation {

    private final ConfigProperties properties;
    private final NetworkTokenTmsAdapter service;
    private final TokenRepositoryAdapter repository;

    public Mono<NetworkTokenInformationResponse> execute(@NonNull Mono<CardRequest> card) {
        log.info("Network token creation process starting");
        return card.flatMap(c -> {
            var hashedPan = Token.hashPan(c.getNumber(), properties.getHashing().getSecretKey());
            return repository.findByHashedPan(hashedPan.trim())
                    .flatMap(_ -> {
                        log.info("Token already existing for hashed pan {}, throwing exception", hashedPan);
                        return Mono.<NetworkTokenInformationResponse>error(new TokenizationServiceAlreadyExistsException("Token already existing for hashed pan"));
                    })
                    .switchIfEmpty(
                            service.createToken(Card.builder()
                                            .expirationYear(String.valueOf(c.getExpirationYear()))
                                            .expirationMonth(Token.mapIntegerToString(c.getExpirationMonth()))
                                            .securityCode(String.valueOf(c.getSecurityCode()))
                                            .number(c.getNumber())
                                            .build())
                                    .flatMap(tmsInstrumentidentifier -> {
                                        log.info("Token created, database saving in progress...");
                                        var gatewayToken = ObjectId.get().toString();
                                        var token = Token.builder()
                                                .gatewayToken(gatewayToken)
                                                .tmsInstrumentIdentifier(tmsInstrumentidentifier)
                                                .hashedPan(hashedPan)
                                                .build();
                                        return repository.save(token)
                                                .flatMap(savedToken -> Mono.just(savedToken.networkTokenInformationResponseExtracted()))
                                                .doOnSuccess(_ -> log.info("Token saved in database"));
                                    })
                    );
        });
    }
}

repository:

@Repository
public interface TokenRepositoryAdapter extends ReactiveCrudRepository<Token, String> {

    Mono<Token> findByGatewayToken(String gatewayToken);

    Mono<Token> findByHashedPan(String hashedPan);

    @Query(value = "{ 'tmsInstrumentIdentifier.tokenizedCard.expirationYear' : ?0, 'tmsInstrumentIdentifier.tokenizedCard.expirationMonth' : { $lt: ?1 } }")
    Flux<Token> findByTokenizedCardExpiredDate(int year, int month);
}

Why i am going in the switchIfEmpty, and then go back in the flatmap after findByHashedPan ?

PS: service.createToken is calling a webclient that go on paid service, but it should not as the token is found in database

what’s wrong ?