OK, that's weird. I'm trying to prepare a simple test but all it shows is that the locking order is *supposed* to be right; looking at the code actually confirms that. So this phenomenon I am observing has to be some corner case that shows under high load. I have some susppicions about how the DataContainer is racing with LockManager, but for now that's only some wild speculation ;) View the original post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4218723#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...