Pradip, many thanks for your perseverance
What is the tranaction attribute set for the method?
If the transaction-type is set to 'Bean', why is the above important (and if it is relevant, where do I find these attributes)? Am I reading you correctly if you think that the transaction attribute set for the method should be one of 'Required', 'RequiresNew', 'Mandatory' etc? If so, and this bean's transactions are not container-managed, are these attributes necessary?
Remember that the services I am using can be called from an EJB, but it is conceivable for these services to be deployed outside a container and called by some other client, so I *cannot* rely on container transaction management.
Thanks again