Neo4j not mapping relationship

im having issue while trying to get node mapping in neo4j(spring boot) the problem is like this :

I have already node User created in DB now what Im doing is trying to create node Channel and create outgoing relationship CREATED_BY from Channel to User and I return both nodes and relationship but neo4j is not mapping relationship nor User entity here it's the code :

@NodeEntity
public class Channel {

    //... other properties including ID

    @Relationship(type = "CREATED_BY", direction = Relationship.OUTGOING)
    protected User creator;

    @Relationship(type = "CREATED_BY", direction = Relationship.OUTGOING)
    protected ChannelCreatorRelationship channelCreatorRelationship;

    //geters and setters

}

Cypher query to create and return nodes and relationships :

@Query("MATCH (u:User { userId:2 }) " +
            "MERGE (ch:Channel {name:'name'}) " +
            "MERGE (ch)-[r:CREATED_BY]->(u) " +
            "RETURN ch,r,u;")
    Optional<Channel> createChannel();

Response that Im getting is channel but with user node or relationship node as null :

{
  "name": "name",
  "creator": null,
  "channelCreatorRelationship": null
}

Thanks !

Could it be the case that ChannelCreatorRelationship is a RelationshipEntity connecting Channel and User? This won't work because they both would describe the very same relationship and you should see a warning in the logs.