literal value cannot be null; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException while using Specifications

Question

while fetching data using specification, im getting the following error:

org.springframework.dao.InvalidDataAccessApiUsageException: literal value cannot be null; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: literal value cannot be null
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.EntityManagerFactoryUtils.convertJpaAccessExceptionIfPossible(EntityManagerFactoryUtils.java:374)
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.HibernateJpaDialect.translateExceptionIfPossible(HibernateJpaDialect.java:235)
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.translateExceptionIfPossible(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:548)
    at org.springframework.dao.support.ChainedPersistenceExceptionTranslator.translateExceptionIfPossible(ChainedPersistenceExceptionTranslator.java:61)
    at org.springframework.dao.support.DataAccessUtils.translateIfNecessary(DataAccessUtils.java:242)
    at org.springframework.dao.support.PersistenceExceptionTranslationInterceptor.invoke(PersistenceExceptionTranslationInterceptor.java:152)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.ReflectiveMethodInvocation.proceed(ReflectiveMethodInvocation.java:186)

this is the code snippet am using :

studentDao.findAll(
        (root, query, criteriaBuilder) -> criteriaBuilder.between(
            root.get("enrollmentDate"), searchRequest.getStartDate(),
            searchRequest.getEndDate()));

so the requirement is to fetch all the student information for a given date range.

my dao is as follows

@Repository
public interface StudentDao extends BaseRepository<StudentEntity, Long>,
    JpaSpecificationExecutor<StudentEntity>{

}

Also note that when i tested using unit test the criteria was giving the result, but its failing on my dev environment