It's ok if there's no transaction associated with the thread. The MC just won't be enlisted (yet? - lazy enlist). But it's wrong if there is a transaction and its not ACTIVE. This check is only an attempt to "fail early" anyway, it could always race with a tx rollback. The real definitive check is done later during tx.enlist(XAResource); View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4170553#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...