The previous posts regarding the deployment of the new tomcat stack (tomcat 6/cocoon2.1.9-with-exist-as-a-block) have created a difficult to follow process. I've spent the last week or so working through various issues and have gotten to the point that I can deploy a working local stack with xep and a remote one without xep. The assumption is that the introduction of xep is the culprit. I am now trying to eliminate the jvm as the problem (I am running 1.6 on the local machine, while the remote is running 1.5). If RenderX builds its jars against an exact jvm it is conceivable that there would be problems. I am installing Java 1.5 on the local machine to test this. In the meantime, there is a tomcat stack sans xep running on lettuce.