I developed portlet based on Icefaces and portletfaces. I used partialsubmit for ajax, but when I saw some post they said it should use out-of-the-box JSF 2 ajax support to avoid validation firing I tried to use f:ajax but doesn't work.
I also tried to use it out of the portlet environment doesn't work, I change the ice:selectOneMenu to h:selectOneMenu then got DOM exception.
the version of Icefaces is 2.0.1
I solve this problem through using old mechanism for JSF1 with immediate attribute and in the end of the change listener method I add this
FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().renderResponse();
and the validation not firing.