The issue appears to be in the VFS. If I comment out the reading of the manifest for the package information (which uses the VFS) then the tests take about 16 seconds (i.e. less than half the time). BaseClassLoader::definePackage | - PackageInformation pi = policy.getClassPackageInformation(className, packageName); | + PackageInformation pi = null; | This is using jboss-vfs 2.1.2.GA View the original post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4251529#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...