anonymous wrote : At first it would seem to the neophyte like me a more natural way to keep the object itself and perhaps merge it at the beginning of each conversation. Thats a valid alternative approach, but doesn't work so nicely with EntityHome. anonymous wrote : (issue aside I wonder if there is a way to differentiate between a managed entity and one that is not, to avoid the exception thrown when trying to merge an already managed entity) entityManager.contains(entity); anonymous wrote : Rephrasing, when is more appropriate to merge and entity instead of reloading it? Both are semantically equivalent in this case AFAICS. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4113926#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...