I found out that the error was caused by missing config parameters for the InitialContext that was used. Though I had set the parameters correctly for the contexts I created explicitly, the ones that were created by the static utility routines of the example files were not initialized. This was because my run environment was not exactly as the one used for examples when running them with ant and thus the config files (like jndi.properties) were not found. After I made sure that for all InitialContexts that were used, the configuration was set properly, it worked. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4108001#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...