I also sometimes see serverC (the last server up) spit out this error after receiving the proper cluster view, but then still hang for a while:

2004-08-26 17:20:54,393 INFO [org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.HAPartition.ProductionPartition] Fetching state (will wait for 60000 milliseconds):
2004-08-26 17:20:54,401 INFO [ProductionPartition:ReplicantManager] Dead members: 0
2004-08-26 17:21:21,926 ERROR [org.jgroups.protocols.pbcast.GMS] [mateso-webapp2:32819 (additional data: 17 bytes)] received view <= current view; discarding it (current vid: [mateso-webapp3:32796 (additional data: 17 bytes)|3], new vid: [mateso-webapp3:32796 (additional data: 17 bytes)|2])
2004-08-26 17:21:22,469 WARN [org.jgroups.stack.UpHandler] UpHandler (STABLE) exception: java.lang.NullPointerException
2004-08-26 17:21:22,469 ERROR [STDERR] java.lang.NullPointerException
2004-08-26 17:21:22,470 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jgroups.protocols.pbcast.Digest.toString(Digest.java:374)
2004-08-26 17:21:22,470 ERROR [STDERR] at java.lang.String.valueOf(String.java(Inlined Compiled Code))
2004-08-26 17:21:22,470 ERROR [STDERR] at java.lang.StringBuffer.append(StringBuffer.java(Compiled Code))
2004-08-26 17:21:22,470 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jgroups.protocols.pbcast.STABLE.handleStabilityMessage(STABLE.java:518)
2004-08-26 17:21:22,470 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jgroups.protocols.pbcast.STABLE.up(STABLE.java:222)
2004-08-26 17:21:22,471 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jgroups.stack.UpHandler.run(Protocol.java:59)