ADF FACES: af:messages/ does not display my messages at all

Question

I am having an issue displaying messages using ADF MyFaces EA20.
<af:messages />
Within all backing beans I call messages with the following method to conveniently display messages when needed.
// Add invalid email address message
JSFUtils.addMsgToContext(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_ERROR, "setEmail_error", MsgConstants.INVALID_EMAIL);
The method utilized can be seen below:
public static void addMsgToContext(FacesMessage.Severity severity, String msgKey, String descKey) {
    // Check the parameter, if either short desc or desc both are empty
    if (StringUtils.isEmpty(descKey)) {
        logger.error("Message description are empty. Do NOTHING just return");
        return;
    try {
        logger.debug("Add Message to Context");
        FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
        Application application = context.getApplication();
        // Add the message to the context
        context.addMessage(msgKey, getMessageFromBundle(descKey, severity));
    } catch (RuntimeException e) {
        * Supress RuntimeException.
        logger.error("Error occured when add message to context", e);
With the first login page when validating username and password, the messages I send to the context display correctly, for example, “incorrect password please try again” and this uses exactly the same code as above in the backing bean.
However once a session has started the messages simply do not get displayed and are not included in the HTML the <af:messages /> is replaced with nothing.
No runtime exception is thrown.
If anyone has any idea of why the messages are not being displayed I would be very grateful to hear them.
Finally if I may add that I used this method of displaying messages in a previous project and it was fine. This time the only difference is that I am using Hibernate.
The closest answer I could find to a similar issue with Oracle Forums was:
The messages have to be added before the Render Response phase. It's generally very unusual to add messages in a bean getter/setter. I'd restrict yourself to adding messages in event listeners and actions.
I do put messages in my setter methods as this is where I perform validation, but I have tried moving them to the main method called by the action button and this still does not display my messages.

Answer 1

Frank
There is a standard way? Next time you can simply tell me to RTFM ;-) . I am working on a project and was assigned my particular section and was told that the messaging aspect and validation was not urgent, until now near the end of the project when it has become urgent. Rather then listen to my colleagues answer of "this is the way to do it" your answer suggested that we working in a non-standard way.
Having looked at Oracle JDeveloper 10g (10.1.3) Documentation, Validation, Conversion, and the Application Lifecycle section I noticed:
Render response:
Either display new page based on invoked navigation rules, or displays same page with errors.
I was providing a new navigation String to the same page under all conditions, which I guess gives a new context and so does not display the messages. Under error conditions I now return an empty navigation String and now it displays my messages.
Thank you for your help with this and I promise to read the manual next time.
Andrew