One thing I discovered is if you override the toString() method and output the relationships, it'll force the container to load the relationship related fields. I'm thinking it accomplishes the same thing as fetchtype.eager but i've had more luck with this. Plus it works dual fold since I use the toString() method in conjunction with facesMessages to display what the object coming back is. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4079313#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...