ConnectionFactory lost, but session not invalidated.

Question

Hi guys!
I Have a connectionfactory object which calls Drivermanager.getConnection(...) for
new connections in my classes. and i am closing them properly.
I am using servlets for the first time to handle bussiness logic instead of jsp.
the problem i am facing is that i get the connectionfactory from the session by using
ConnectionFactory factory = (ConnectionFactory)request.getSession().getAttribute("connectionFactory");everything works fine for a while then the factory is suddenly null, i know the session did not expire because i can still get other objects out
of the session
does anyone have ideas to what may be causing the problem?
Sincerely
-epoch-

Answer 1

Thank you for replying, no it is not Serializable
This is a modified version of BalusC's code to work for me
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import webportal.PortalSettings;
import webportal.WebPortal;
public class ConnectionFactory {
    private String url;
    private String username;
    private String password;
    private PortalSettings settings;
    public ConnectionFactory() {
     * Construct a new ConnectionFactory Object
     * from the specified settings file.
     * @param settings
    public ConnectionFactory(PortalSettings settings)
            throws DAOConfigurationException {
        this.setSettings(settings);
     * Returns a connection to the database.
     * @return A connection to the database.
     * @throws SQLException If acquiring the connection fails.
    public Connection getConnection() throws SQLException {
        if (!WebPortal.isNull(this.username) && !WebPortal.isNull(this.password)) {
            return DriverManager.getConnection(this.getUrl(), this.getUsername(), this.getPassword());
        } else {
            return DriverManager.getConnection(this.getUrl());
     * This sets the ConnectionFactory's settings
     * and loads all the nessasary drivers
     * @param settings the settings to set
    public void setSettings(PortalSettings settings)
            throws DAOConfigurationException {
        this.settings = settings;
        this.url = settings.getDatabaseURL();
        this.username = settings.getUserName();
        this.password = settings.getPassword();
        String driverClassName = settings.getDatabaseDriver();
        if (!WebPortal.isNull(this.url)) {
            if (!WebPortal.isNull(driverClassName)) {
                try {
                    Class.forName(driverClassName);
                } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
                    throw new DAOConfigurationException(
                        "Driver class '" + driverClassName + "' is missing in classpath.", e);
        } else {
            throw new DAOConfigurationException("No database url specified.");
     * @return the url
    public String getUrl() {
        return url;
     * @return the username
    public String getUsername() {
        return username;
     * @return the password
    public String getPassword() {
        return password;
}