Even when putting:

@TransactionAttribute(TransactionAttributeType.NOT_SUPPORTED)

on the onMessage method of an MDB a transaction is still started. This can be verified by using a simple MDB that sleeps for longer than the transaction timeout (300 seconds by default). For example:

import javax.ejb.ActivationConfigProperty;
import javax.ejb.MessageDriven;
import javax.ejb.TransactionAttribute;
import javax.ejb.TransactionAttributeType;
import javax.jms.Message;
import javax.jms.MessageListener;

import org.apache.log4j.Logger;

@MessageDriven(activationConfig =

{ @ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName = "destinationType", propertyValue = "javax.jms.Queue"), @ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName = "destination", propertyValue = "queue/A"), @ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName = "maxSession", propertyValue = "3") }

)
public class ExampleEJB3MDB implements MessageListener {
private static final Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(ExampleEJB3MDB.class);

@TransactionAttribute(TransactionAttributeType.NOT_SUPPORTED)
public void onMessage(Message m) {
logger.info("message received, waiting for 10 mins...");

try

{ Thread.sleep(600000); // 10 mins }

catch (InterruptedException e) {
}

logger.info("finished waiting");
}
}

When a message is sent to "queue/A" and the MDB picks it up it prints "message received, waiting for 10 mins..." in the log. After 5 minutes (300 seconds) the message appears in the log again because the transaction has timed-out and the message has been redelivered.

I believe the problem lies in org.jboss.ejb3.mdb.inflow.JBossMessageEndpointFactory in the isDeliveryTransacted method. Here is that method [1]:

public boolean isDeliveryTransacted(Method method) throws NoSuchMethodException
{
TransactionManagementType mtype = TxUtil.getTransactionManagementType(container);
if (mtype == javax.ejb.TransactionManagementType.BEAN) return false;

TransactionAttribute attr = (TransactionAttribute)container.resolveAnnotation(method, TransactionAttribute.class);
if (attr == null)

{ attr =(TransactionAttribute)container.resolveAnnotation(TransactionAttribute.class); }

TransactionAttributeType type = TransactionAttributeType.REQUIRED;
if (attr != null) type = attr.value();
return type == javax.ejb.TransactionAttributeType.REQUIRED;
}

The problem is not in the isDeliveryTransacted method, the problem is that the line that is supposed to get the transaction attribute from the onmessage method always returns null. it should return NOT_SUPPPORTED, which would cause the method to return false. The method always returns true unless you specify BMT, because the annotation is busted for some reason.