So if it's not sent as one big update, is it sent as I guessed in the second paragraph in my previous post? If you specify flushMode=MANUAL, the docs say you explicitly have to call flush(). What happens if you end a conversation that has pending updates to it without calling flush()...aren't they flushed anyways?? When would you choose to use MANUAL vs not? Aren't both options really the same (i.e. intermediate updates held in database uncommitted vs in the session bean)? I'm really confused. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4005934#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...