OK, so we're actually configured to not pass state at startup. The behavior I am seeing is that a new JBC instance comes online while a write is happening and before it has completely joined the cluster, so the write fails. But, it seems this locks up the entire cluster on a permanent basis until that node shuts down. Is there any way I can detect this in the new JBC instance so that I can stop the cache service and attempt to rejoin? Can the other nodes detect this? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4156686#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...