looks like the classic deadlock scenario: Tx838 tries to acquire WL on /Indicatives/SAIL04035 - WL owned by Tx837 Tx837 tries to acquire WL on /Indicatives/SAIL04034 - WL owned by Tx838 If this is a frequently used cache accessed pattern, it worths trying optimistic locking (in the prev scenario, with optimistic locking, at least one transaction would had succeeded) Take a look here for some information on the drivers behind optimistic locking: http://wiki.jboss.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=OptimisticNodeLocking View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4125079#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...