Yes - but I'm not sure how that helps with this problem. Spec says: When the EJB container creates a new instance of an EJB, the container must perform the following steps after Java EE in- jection has been performed and before the @PostConstruct callback occurs: • First, the container initializes the values of all injected fields. For each injected field, the container sets the value to the object returned by Manager.getInstanceToInject(). • Next, if the EJB instance is a contextual instance of a bean, the container initializes the values of any fields with initial values specified in XML, as defined in Section 9.5.5, “Field initial value declarations”. And from the EJB spec (section 4.7.1) A stateless session bean instance’s life starts when the container invokes the newInstance method on the session bean class to create a new session bean instance. Next, the container performs any dependency injection as specified by metadata annotations on the bean class or by the deployment descriptor. The container then calls the PostConstruct lifecycle call- back interceptor methods for the bean, if any. The container can perform the instance creation at any time—there is no direct relationship to a client’s invocation of a business method or the create method. • The session bean instance is now ready to be delegated a business method call from any client or a call from the container to a timeout callback method. For example a stateless bean: * An @EJB injection occurs, no bean class instance exists, so it gets created and injected as non-contextual * gets returned to the pool * A JSR299 injection occurs, EJB container simply returns the bean from the pool, no create step so get's returned injected as non- contextual (from earlier create) This seems odd to me. On 16 Mar 2009, at 17:27, Gavin King wrote: -- Pete Muir http://www.seamframework.org http://in.relation.to/Bloggers/Pete