Direct self-reference leading to cycle Superclass issue JSON

I have tried several things I found while searching but nothing helped or I did not implement it correctly.

Error I'm getting

Direct self-reference leading to cycle (through reference chain: io.test.entity.bone.Special["appInstance"]->io.test.entity.platform.ApplicationInstance["appInstance"])

Both these extend the base entity and in the base (super class) it has an appInstance as well.

Base entity looks similar to this

@MappedSuperclass
public abstract class BaseEntity implements Comparable, Serializable {

@ManyToOne
protected ApplicationInstance appInstance;

//getter & setter

}

Application entity looks like this

public class ApplicationInstance extends BaseEntity implements Serializable { 
   private List<User> users;
// some other properties (would all have the same base and application instance . User entity will look similar to the Special.)
}

Special entity

@JsonTypeInfo(use = JsonTypeInfo.Id.NAME, include = JsonTypeInfo.As.PROPERTY, property = "objectType")
@JsonIgnoreProperties({"createdBy", "appInstance", "lastUpdatedBy"})
public class Special extends BaseEntity implements Serializable {

    @NotNull
    @Column(nullable = false)
    private String name;

    @Column(length = Short.MAX_VALUE)
    private String description;

    @NotNull
    @Column(nullable = false)
    private Double price;

    @OneToOne
    private Attachment image;

    @Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
    @ElementCollection(targetClass = SpecialTag.class)
    @CollectionTable(name = "special_tags")
    @Column(name = "specialtag")
    private List<SpecialTag> specialTags;

    @Temporal(TemporalType.TIME)
    private Date specialStartTime;

    @Temporal(TemporalType.TIME)
    private Date specialEndTime;

    @Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
    @ElementCollection(targetClass = WeekDay.class)
    @CollectionTable(name = "available_week_days")
    @Column(name = "weekday")
    private List<WeekDay> availableWeekDays;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "special", cascade = CascadeType.REFRESH)
    private List<SpecialStatus> statuses;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "special", cascade = CascadeType.REFRESH)
    private List<SpecialReview> specialReviews;

    @Transient
    private Integer viewed;

    private Boolean launched;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "special")
    private List<CampaignSpecial> specialCampaigns;


  @Override
  @JsonIgnore
  public ApplicationInstance getAppInstance() {
    return super.getAppInstance(); 
  }
}

All entities in Special inherits from BaseEntity which contains AppInstance

then i have a method to get the special

@GET
@Path("{ref}")
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
@Consumes(value = MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
public Special findByGuestRef(@PathParam("ref") String pRefeference) {
  // find the special and return it
 return special;
}

On the special entity I tried the following

• Added jsonIgnoreProperties
• Added an override for appInstance to annotate with @JsonIgnore
• @JsonIdentityInfo

links for the above

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/29632358/4712391
• Jackson serialization: how to ignore superclass properties
• jackson self reference leading to cycle

none of those solutions works. Am I doing something wrong?

Note: Would it also just be possible to edit special, since the other entities are in a different package and would not like to edit them.