Actually it looks like simply using another EntityManager anywhere in my action bean caused a completely _different_ component (ruleTypes) in the action bean to not be injected. Same result whether I injected it with @PersistenceContext or created it by hand with new EntityManagerFactory().createEntityManager(). I guess using multiple entity managers is verboten. Things just shouldn't be so difficult. I can't be the first person in the world who has ever had to enforce a uniqueness constraint with JPA. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3982473#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...