Index: src/test/java/org/infinispan/loaders/jdbc/IllegalConfigurationHandlingTest.java
===================================================================
--- src/test/java/org/infinispan/loaders/jdbc/IllegalConfigurationHandlingTest.java	(revision 0)
+++ src/test/java/org/infinispan/loaders/jdbc/IllegalConfigurationHandlingTest.java	(revision 0)
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+/*
+ * JBoss, Home of Professional Open Source.
+ * Copyright 2009, Red Hat Middleware LLC, and individual contributors
+ * as indicated by the @author tags. See the copyright.txt file in the
+ * distribution for a full listing of individual contributors.
+ *
+ * This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+ * under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
+ * published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of
+ * the License, or (at your option) any later version.
+ *
+ * This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+ * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
+ * Lesser General Public License for more details.
+ *
+ * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
+ * License along with this software; if not, write to the Free
+ * Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
+ * 02110-1301 USA, or see the FSF site: http://www.fsf.org.
+ */
+package org.infinispan.loaders.jdbc;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+
+import org.infinispan.manager.CacheManager;
+import org.infinispan.manager.DefaultCacheManager;
+import org.infinispan.test.TestingUtil;
+import org.testng.annotations.Test;
+
+/**
+ * IllegalConfigurationHandling verifies that errors in starting a Store are handled gracefully
+ * 
+ * @author Sanne Grinovero
+ * @since 4.0
+ */
+@Test(groups = "functional", testName = "loaders.jdbc.IllegalConfigurationHandlingTest")
+public class IllegalConfigurationHandlingTest {
+   
+   @Test(expectedExceptions={org.infinispan.CacheException.class})
+   public void testWrongStoreConfiguration() throws IOException {
+      CacheManager cm = null;
+      try {
+         cm = new DefaultCacheManager("configs/illegal.xml");
+         cm.start();
+         //needs to get at least a cache to reproduce:
+         cm.getCache("AnyCache");
+      } finally {
+         TestingUtil.killCacheManagers(cm);
+      }
+   }
+
+}
Index: src/test/resources/configs/illegal.xml
===================================================================
--- src/test/resources/configs/illegal.xml	(revision 0)
+++ src/test/resources/configs/illegal.xml	(revision 0)
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<infinispan xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="urn:infinispan:config:4.0">
+
+   <!--
+      This configuration is illegal on purpose for testing, don't reuse!
+   -->
+
+   <default>
+      <jmxStatistics enabled="true" />
+      <loaders passivation="false" shared="true" preload="true">
+         <loader class="org.infinispan.loaders.jdbc.binary.JdbcBinaryCacheStore" fetchPersistentState="false"
+            ignoreModifications="false" purgeOnStartup="false">
+
+            <properties>
+               <property name="connectionFactoryClass" value="org.infinispan.loaders.jdbc.connectionfactory.SimpleConnectionFactory"/>
+               <property name="connectionUrl" value="jdbc:h2:mem:infinispan_binary_based;DB_CLOSE_DELAY=-1"/>
+               <property name="userName" value="sa"/>
+               <property name="password" value="" />
+               <property name="driverClass" value="org.h2.Driver"/>
+               <property name="dropTableOnExit" value="true"/>
+               <property name="createTableOnStart" value="true"/>
+
+               <property name="bucketTableNamePrefix" value="bucket" />
+               <property name="idColumnType" value="VARCHAR(255)" />
+               <property name="idColumnName" value="idCol" />
+               <property name="dataColumnName" value="dataCol" />
+               <property name="dataColumnType" value="BINARY" />
+
+               <property name="timestampColumnName" value="timestampCol" />
+               <!-- A valid column type should be used:  -->
+               <property name="timestampColumnType" value="SomethingUnsupportedHere:)" />
+               <!--<property name="timestampColumnType" value="BIGINT" />-->
+            </properties>
+
+         </loader>
+      </loaders>
+   </default>
+
+</infinispan>