Thanks dleerob. But i still confusing about the issue. because in the userguide doc of jbpm3.2,there are sample code which call save method explicitly. And they say (in section 7.1.2. Convenience methods on JbpmContext) "Note that if you use the xxxForUpdate methods in the JbpmContext, an explicit invocation of the jbpmContext.save is not necessary any more because it will then occur automatically during the close of the jbpmContext" . So it seemed that if you do NOT use the xxxForUpdate methods,you have to call the save method. I noticed there is a setRollbackOnly() method too. Since it works for you anyway, I will follow. but hope somebody can clarify it. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4151004#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...