Ok i think i figured it out. Spring has a ton load of configuration options. One of the configurations allows for caching the consumer ... hence reducing the overhead of creating connections etc. | <bean id="URIlistener" class="org.springframework.jms.listener.DefaultMessageListenerContainer" lazy-init="false" > | <property name="concurrentConsumers" value="${medium.messaging.urimessaging.listener_count}" /> | <property name="connectionFactory" ref="ConnectionFactory" /> | <property name="destination" ref="ResolvedURIQueue" /> | <property name="messageListener" ref="uriEventMessageListener" /> | <property name="cacheLevel"> <util:constant static-field="org.springframework.jms.listener.DefaultMessageListenerContainer.CACHE_CONSUMER"/> | </property> | <property name="recoveryInterval" value="100000"/> | </bean> | | <bean id="uriEventMessageListener" class="org.springframework.jms.listener.adapter.MessageListenerAdapter" lazy-init="false"> | <property name="delegate"> | <ref bean="uriEventListener"/> | </property> | <property name="messageConverter"> | <null/> | </property> | </bean> | the property 'cacheLevel' being set to 'CACHE_CONSUMER' solves this 'too many open files issue' If not specified the default is 'CACHE_NONE'... and this appears to cause the error View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4077541#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...