If a client using the RMI connector does mbeanServerConnection.removeNotificationListener and the operation fails with an exception (most likely SecurityException) then the connector will continue to send notifications for that listener, but the client will no longer receive them. If removeNotificationListener fails then the client should continue to get notifications, or perhaps it should tell the server not to send notifications for that listener. As it stands, the notifications continue to be sent, but the client listener is not invoked, and the client has no way to remove the server's record of the listener.