I agree that lazy instantiation is the best way to go, but my problem with the lazy instantiation is that I have trouble keeping my objects in the session. My seam action classes call my business layer to get all objects:

i.e. List clients=clientService.findByLastName("Doe");

This works fine to display the search results, but when I click a detail row to go to the detail page I get lazy initialization errors:

client.getPolicies(); <-- produces lazy initialization error.

I think the problem is that the call to the entity manager is buried in my DAO layer and is not in the action itself. In other words, my action calls the business layer which in turn calls the DAO layer to get the object. Because the EntityManager is not in the action I get lazy initialization errors, is this correct? Am I going about this all wrong?

I know there must be a way to do this, but others have complained about this problem as well: http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&t=62275

I cannot quite understand how to keep the object in the session between pages I keep getting LazyInitialization errors on all subsequent pages. What am I doing wrong?

My entity bean has session scope:

@Table(name="FBCLIENT",schema="DB2ADMIN")
@Name("client")
@Scope(ScopeType.SESSION)
public class ClientVO implements Serializable
{
 private static final long serialVersionUID = 2285612284592204149L;

 private Long id;
 private String notes;
 private String clientType;
 private String memberNumber;
 private Set<ClientLocationVO> entityLocations = new HashSet<ClientLocationVO>();
 private Set<PolicyVO> policies = new HashSet<PolicyVO>();
 private String search;
 private DrivingDistance drivingDistance;
 private String homePhone;
 private String workPhone;
 private String cellPhone;
 private String pagerNo;
 private String email;
 private ClientVO parentClient;
 private List<ClientVO> clientMembers=new ArrayList<ClientVO>();

 /**
 * @return the childMembers
 */


 @OneToMany(mappedBy="parentClient",fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
 public List<ClientVO> getClientMembers() {
 return clientMembers;
 }

 /**
 * @return the parentClient
 */

 @ManyToOne()
 @JoinColumn (name="parentclientid" )
 public ClientVO getParentClient() {
 return parentClient;
 }
....

@Stateless
@Name("search")
public class SearchAction implements Search
{
 @In Identity identity;

 @In private SearchVO searchvo;
 @In(create=true) private ClientService clientService;
 @In(create=true) private PolicyService policyService;


 @In(required=false)
 private FBWorker worker;

 @Out(required=false) private PolicyVO policy;
 public String performNameSearch()
 {

 searchResults = policyService.findPolicyHoldersByNameIncludeSubclients(searchvo.getSearchString());

 searchvo.setSearchResults(searchResults);
 return "success";
 }

...

<h:commandLink value="#{searchResult.clientVO.fullName}" action="#{clientAction.lookupClientFromSearch}"/>

@Stateful
@Name("clientAction")
public class ClientActionImpl implements ClientAction
{
 @In(create=true) private ClientService clientService;
 @In(required=false) @Out(required=false) ClientVO client;
 @In @Out(required=false) PolicyVO policy;
 @In(required=false) ClientVO subClient;
 @In(required=false) MasterSearchResultVO searchResult;

 @Begin(join=true)
 public String lookupClientFromSearch() {
 client=clientService.findClientByIdFetchGraph(searchResult.getClientVO().getId());

 if (client instanceof PersonVO)
 {
 organizationFlag=false;
 personFlag=true;
 System.out.println("The Client is a PersonVO");

policy.getPolicyHolder();
 }
 else if (client instanceof OrganizationVO)
 {
 organizationFlag=true;
 personFlag=false;
 System.out.println("The Client is a PersonVO");
 }
 else
 {
 System.out.println("The Client is a only a ClientVO");
 }

 return "success";
 }
 @End
....