Toplink - JPA ignores lazy fetchtype , when it should NOT

Question

I'm using Blaze Data Services (The open sourced component of LiveCycle Data Service) , as well as Spring.
Basically, I have concluded that even while closing the entity manager within the DAO, calls to get a collection on an object after the service layer has returned result in toplink trying to find the objects, vs finding null (or indirect list).
This is only supposed to happen while the Entity Manager is open, correct?
Here's a basic overview of my model
public class Store {
// ManyToMany
// Lazy
Collection<Catalog> catalogs;
public class Catalog {
// many to many
// lazy
Collection<Category> categories;
public class Category {
// many to many
// lazy
Collection<Product> products;
public class Product {
// here's the kicker
Collection<Category> categories; // the categories this product is in
I run into major problems when BlazeDS begins to serialize the beans, in that my lazy mappings are ignored, and tons of SQL statements begin to fire. In fact, the cyclic relationships cause the parent objects to be built as children of their children, for instance, a Product causes Categories to be built yet again, then Products, and it results in a heap space overflow.
Basically, the only way I was able to work was by removing the mappings entirely.
If I'm going to do this, I may as well not even use toplink. :-/
Thanks in advance for any help!

Answer 1

Also, the relationships I am talking about are not OnetoOne, or ManyToOne. I am not using toplink-agent, but the relationships I am having problems with are ManyToMany.
DAO Method
....public Collection<Store> findAll()
........EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();
........try
............Query query = em.createNamedQuery("findStores");
............return query.getResultList();
........finally
............em.close();
Bean definition
@Entity
public class Store implements Serializable
....@Id
....@GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.SEQUENCE,
........................generator="mySeq")
....@SequenceGenerator(name="mySeq",
........................sequenceName="my_SEQ",
........................allocationSize=1)
....private long id;
....@Column(name="DESCRIPTION")
....private String description;
....@Column(name="SHORT_DESCRIPTION")
....private String shortDescription;
....@Column(name="LAST_UPDATE_USER")
....private String lastUpdateUser;
....@Embedded
....private TriggerAttributes triggerAttributes;
....@Column(name="NAME")
....private String name;
....@ManyToMany(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
....@JoinTable(name="STORECATALOG",
................joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "STORE_UID"),
................inverseJoinColumns={@JoinColumn(name="CATALOG_UID")})
....private Collection<Catalog> catalogCollection;