Issues will occur in the Smooks Fragment-Based Processing Model if the stylesheet contains a template that is using an absolute path reference to the document root node. This is because the wrong element is being targeted by Smooks. To rectify the problem, ensure that the XSLT contains a template that matches the context node being targeted by Smooks.

SAX versus DOM Processing: "like" is not being compared with "like". In its current state, Smooks only supports a DOM-based processing model for dealing with XSL. In order to undertake an accurate comparison, use a DOMSource (one that is namespace-aware) when executing the XSL template outside Smooks. (A given XSL Processor does not always produce the same output when it tries to apply an XSL template using SAX or DOM.)