<p:commandButton> needs one of the following to work correctly:
- the
updateattribute to list id’s of components to re-render (for AJAX requests) - the attribute
ajax="false"to make a normal, non-ajax submit.
If you have neither, the button does per default an AJAX request with no UI feedback.
Additionally, I’ve had problems with neither option working when the surrounding <h:form> had an enctype attribute.