The HAPartition bean is just doing this in stopService(): ctx = new InitialContext(); ctx.unbind(boundName); In startService() it's more complicated, but essentially creates a new default InitialContext and does a rebind. So, no accessing a different dependency in stopService(). The bean has a depends on jboss:service=NamingService. Looking at the javax.naming code, it looks like the only way the reported error would happen would be if the conf/jndi.properties file were no longer on the classpath. Would the incorrect ordering problem Adrian's mentioned result in conf/ being taken off the classpath prematurely? BTW, IIRC the failure message has changed; used to mention org.jboss.iiop.naming.ORBInitialContextFactory, perhaps as a CNFE. Wouldn't surprise me if solving the current error condition just brings that one back. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4123638#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...