I am using an Extended Persistence context, SeamManagedPhaseListener, etc. to collect information through a number of wizard-like steps.

When the user confirms, I perform all of my persistence. In the event of some unforseen database error, I want to rollback the transaction, present the user with an error message and allow them to potentially resolve the error and resubmit.

To do this, I catch all exceptions around the persistence logic and issue a

SessionContext.setRollbackOnly();

Something like

try
{
 em.persist(x);
} catch (RuntimeEception e)
{
 ctx.setRollbackOnly();

 //set error message

 return "errorpage";
}

then set an error message and return the page that will display it.

The setRollbackOnly() completes without error, however after returning the page to navigate to I get the following:

Caused by: javax.transaction.NotSupportedException: Transaction already active, cannot nest transactions.
 at org.jboss.tm.TxManager.begin(TxManager.java:208)

What is the proper way to attempt to recover from persistence errors?