Internally started external transaction,release causes ConcurrencyException

Question

I will try to explain my problem with a very very simplified code example.
(The code is not entirely correct; consider it to be pseudocode)
Below the onMessage method of a Message Driven (TestMDB) bean is shown.
The mdb bean is configured not to have a container managed transaction; Transaction attribute is 'NotSupported'.
Toplink is configured to use a external transaction controller.
onMessage(Message message)
try
String sessionId = Guid.generateGUID(message);
uow = getUnitOfWork(sessionid);
ObjectToPersist obj = new ObjectToPersist();
uow.registerNewObject(obj);
     // the following release would normally only be performed in case of an exception
uow.release();
public UnitOfWork (String sessionId) {
ClientSession session = (ClientSession)sessionProvider.getSession(sessionId);
uow = session.getActiveUnitOfWork();
if(uow == null)
uow = session.acquireUnitOfWork();
Now when this very simple piece of code above is executed an external transaction is internally started.
But the statement "uow.release()" produces the following exception stack:
Exception [TOPLINK-2004] (Oracle TopLink - 10g Release 3 (10.1.3.3.0) (Build 070620)): oracle.toplink.exceptions.ConcurrencyException
Exception Description: A signal was attempted before wait() on ConcurrencyManager. This normally means that an attempt was made to
commit or rollback a transaction before it was started, or to rollback a transaction twice.
     at oracle.toplink.exceptions.ConcurrencyException.signalAttemptedBeforeWait(ConcurrencyException.java:63)
     at oracle.toplink.internal.helper.ConcurrencyManager.release(ConcurrencyManager.java:336)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.Session.rollbackTransaction(Session.java:2771)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.UnitOfWork.rollbackTransaction(UnitOfWork.java:4138)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.UnitOfWork.rollbackTransaction(UnitOfWork.java:4159)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.UnitOfWork.commitToDatabase(UnitOfWork.java:1340)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.UnitOfWork.commitToDatabaseWithChangeSet(UnitOfWork.java:1389)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.UnitOfWork.issueSQLbeforeCompletion(UnitOfWork.java:2866)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.UnitOfWork.issueSQLbeforeCompletion(UnitOfWork.java:2846)
     at oracle.toplink.jts.oracle9i.Oracle9iJTSSynchronizationListener.beforeCompletion(Oracle9iJTSSynchronizationListener.java:61)
     at com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransaction.callSynchronizationBeforeCompletion(ApplicationServerTransaction.java:1447)
     at com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransaction.beforeCompletion(ApplicationServerTransaction.java:1296)
     at com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransaction.rollback(ApplicationServerTransaction.java:594)
     at com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransaction.rollback(ApplicationServerTransaction.java:572)
     at oracle.toplink.jts.JTSExternalTransactionController.rollbackTransaction(JTSExternalTransactionController.java:151)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.Session.rollbackExternalTransaction(Session.java:2739)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.Session.rollbackTransaction(Session.java:2777)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.UnitOfWork.rollbackTransaction(UnitOfWork.java:4138)
     at oracle.toplink.publicinterface.UnitOfWork.release(UnitOfWork.java:3972)
     at nl.portinfolink.platform.normalizer.emp.service.TestMDB.onMessage(TestMDB.java:007)
If      "uow.release()" is replaced by "uow.commit()" all works fine. It is ok to commit a uow that is associated with an external
transaction that is internally started.
But why does the release cause an exception?
Specifications:
Appserver: oc4j(9.0.4)
Toplink 10.1.3.3
EJB 2.1

Answer 1

This is odd. From the stack even though the uow.release() is rolling back the JTA transaction, it is still raising the beforeCompletion event (which is incorrect, I think a issue with OC4J 9.0.4 but was fixed in OC4J 10.2 or 10.1.3).
Note that you are using a deprecated transaction controller, try using
oracle.toplink.transaction.oc4j.Oc4jTransactionController, this might work correctly. Otherwise you could customize your transaction controller to ignore the beforeCompletion callback if the transaction is in a rollback state.
<p>---
<br>James Sutherland
<br>Oracle TopLink, EclipseLink
<br>Wiki: Java Persistence, EclipseLink