Is the client external or deployed in the app.server? In other words, is it the app.server that dies hard when the JVM crashes?
If the app.server is dying then it's up to the database to timeout the transaction (or the app.server to recover and abort when it's restarted).
If an external client program is dying and the app.server is still running, then yes one would expect the app.server to timeout the transaction, though I have had similar problems with JBoss + Derby whereby the UserTransaction was rolled back automatically [b]without[/b] the DB locks being released which seems bugged to me and you might have hit a similar problem with GF.
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