(Sorry, got interrupted and missed a bit out)

OK I'm on the verge of losing the plot here.......

When I call a save or update on the parent the first time round, all is well, the save occurrs, both the parent and children get saved. When I call the same method later, having retrieved the same data from the database and only changed one value on the parent entity (not related to the relationship) I get this error regarding the child entity collection it contains.

I have spent a long time examining the debug console in Netbeans and cannont find another reference, instance or mention of the entire child set or any individual entry in it. (This is debug of the parent entity)

I have had a good look at the content of the session through the debugger, and nothing obvious jumps out at me as being one occurence, let alone a second.

I have checked the relationships between all the entities, and there is no occurrence of a many to many or anything silly.

Has anyone an idea what might cause this? (scenarios anything......)

Is there a chance the collection appearing after the error could be a red herring?

Is there some way I can interate the contents of the session to try and discover the 2 occurrences?

Tom