WebSphere iSeries vs NT

I am having an issue with what I believe to be a class loader discrepency.

I have two EAR files.

Both are loaded on the same server.

Pass by reference is de-selected on the server.

Each application has a Classloader Mode of PARENT_FIRST.

EAR 1 has WAR Classloader Policy at Module.
EAR 2 has WAR Classloader Policy at Application.
Changing the EAR 1 to Application had no effect.

Both contain the exact same copy of a JAR file (Common.jar) which
contains the class SearchVO.

EAR 1 creates a SearchVO and passes
it to the EAR 2 facade.

The EAR 2 facade fails a with a ClassCastException, and the
object received is not null.

The whole process works on our NTenvironment,
but has not worked on our iSeries environment.

This is a show stopper for us.  We have exhausted
our resources trying to figure this out.  We are going to place
a call with IBM - but I was hoping one of you experts might know.

Thanks for any advice given!!!

Russell
rhoward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx