No transaction in progress

[connysvensson]

I'm using Seam 2.0.2SP1 and GWT 1.5RC1. I'm having some problems merging entities. I get an TransactionException No transaction in progress. I've done a project in Seam before using the regular JSF presentation layer but now I'm moving to GWT. Is there anything special I need to setup for persistence management to get it to work? Querying the backend works fine but not merging or persisting. Here is my code:

@Scope(ScopeType.EVENT)
@Name("SaveEmployee")
public class SaveEmployeeHandler extends RpcEventHandler<SaveEmployee, RpcEntityResult> {
     
    @Logger Log log;
    
    @In EntityManager entityManager;
     
    @Override
    @Transactional(TransactionPropagationType.REQUIRED)
    protected RpcEntityResult doHandle(SaveEmployee request) throws RpcException {
        log.info("Saving employee with id: #0", request.getEntity().getId());
        
        // Updated entity from client
        Employee clientEmp = (Employee) request.getEntity();
        
        // Get attached entity from backend
        Employee dbEmp = (Employee) entityManager.find(Employee.class, clientEmp.getId());
        
        // Merge client and backend entities (this should be done with hibernate4gwt)
        dbEmp.setFirstName(clientEmp.getFirstName());
        dbEmp.setLastName(clientEmp.getLastName());
              
        try {
            //entityManager.getTransaction().begin();
            //Transaction.instance().begin();
            entityManager.joinTransaction(
            dbEmp = entityManager.merge(dbEmp);
            entityManager.flush();
        } catch (Exception ex) {
            throw new RpcException(ex);
        }
      
        return new RpcEntityResult(dbEmp);
    }
     
}

It crashes on the flush operation. The commented lines are things I've tried to start a transaction but haven't worked. I'm currently using the following code and it works but it feels like it shouldn't be necessary, it's not the regular Seam way.

Session session = (Session) entityManager.getDelegate();
session.saveOrUpdate(dbEmp);
session.flush();

Anyone with an idea why the Seam container doesn't start a transaction automatically for me as it should? I read somewhere that it starts the transaction in the JSF lifecycle but I'm not using JSF. I have marked the method as Transactional so that should take care of it, right?