I don't think that the the missing setup.sql file is a problem. I am running JBoss AS 4.0.4GA, Portal 2.4+ (from SVN on Sept18) and MySQL 5.0 and tried the steps you outlined and they worked fine (no error). Since the forums use Hibernate, it is no longer necessary to pre-load the database tables. When i just now started a clean install I saw messages like this on the console which tells me that Hibernate created the missing tables: 11:20:27,180 WARN [JDBCExceptionReporter] SQL Error: 1146, SQLState: 42S02 11:20:27,180 ERROR [JDBCExceptionReporter] Table 'portal24.jbp_forums_forumswatch' doesn't exist Unfortunately, all of this doesn't help you solve your problem. I assume you are aware of this issue with MySQL 5: http://wiki.jboss.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=AvoidMySQL5DataTruncationErrors If you have PostgreSQL installed you might try switching to that. I have often found that certain builds of the Portal have quirky behavior on one database byt work on the other (though it tends to switch back and forth, it is never always the same database that works flawlessly, usually something to do with the database mapping). View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3973038#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...