The core issue here is to figure out the cause of the java.io.OptionalDataException. What's being deserialized here is a value object your application is putting into the session via setAttribute(). The handling of this by the AS could certainly be better. 1) When the deserialization failure occurs, it's being handled in a poor manner: https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBCLUSTER-243 2) The background processing logic shouldn't keep trying to work with the session cleanly for ever; it should detect a session with a recurring problem and just hard delete it: https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBAS-7397 View the original post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4261598#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...