Ok, it has something to do with department.departmentSectionList I replaced the middle select box to use a crud entity query instead (I removed the first box so the second is not filtered at all) Strangely it works with the entity query This DOES NOT WORK <h:selectOneMenu id="departmentSection_select" value="#{departmentSection}"> | <s:selectItems label="#{deptSection.departmentSectionName}" | value="#{department.departmentSectionList}" | var="deptSection" | noSelectionLabel="(none)"/> | <s:convertEntity/> | <a4j:support event="onchange" | ajaxSingle="true" reRender="complaintType_select"/> | </h:selectOneMenu> Here is the new selectOneMenu that works (see the value of s:selectItems for the difference) | <h:selectOneMenu id="departmentSection_select" value="#{departmentSection}"> | <s:selectItems label="#{deptSection.departmentSectionName}" | value="#{allDepartmentSections.resultList}" | var="deptSection" | noSelectionLabel="(none)"/> | <s:convertEntity/> | <a4j:support event="onchange" | ajaxSingle="true" reRender="complaintType_select"/> | </h:selectOneMenu> Why does it not work when lazy loading the departmentSectionList from Department? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4079632#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...