update on this for anyone who is interested.... basically the issue was with icefaces. I swapped to ajax4jsf for a few ajaxy bits and suddenly all the validation on the selectItems is now firing. Looks like I will be staying with ajax4jsf, icefaces just doesn't seem ready for primetime what with this and the viewNumber exceeded exception... View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4031951#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...