I finally got this problem solved, and want to share the solution. After upgrade to JBoss 4.2.1.GA I noticied that there was a warning message that a port that was wanted was used by someone else. The app server still started. A collegue pointed out, that when Skype or IP phone software (and some chat software) is started before jBoss, they tend to occupy ports that are wanted by JBoss by default. So, starting debugging before starting Skype (and in my case Trillian) reduced the startup time from over 10 minutes to sub minute!!! Seems a little bit to strange to be true. What do you think? Could this have been what was causing my problems? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4066804#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...