This shld only be within the same tx. The whole concept of marking nodes for removal does not exist if no txs are used. If things happen in different txs, e.g., remove in tx 1, and put in tx 2, the looping in tx 2 is *supposed* to happen until tx 1 commits and finishes the remove operation and actually removes nodes. If your app causes tx 1 to remove, suspends the tx, and then starts tx 2 with a put, then you have a deadlock because tx 2 will never come out of the loop until tx 1 finishes. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4013625#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...