When using the simple Helloworld Testcase given as part of the "Getting Started with RMI-IIOP" we unplug the network cable which connects client and server, and wait. Since the cable is unplugged, the RMI call remains blocked forever (we have tested up to 15 minutes). RMI should have thrown an exception at some point here, but it didn't actually throw an exception until the connection was plugged back in. At that point, a Marshal exception was thrown. This behaviour is seen on SOlaris 8 and 9 systems. Surpisingly, on the Windows platform (win2K), the RMI client immeidately gives an exception when the client network cable is plugged out.