diff --git a/api/src/main/java/jakarta/mail/internet/MimeMessage.java b/api/src/main/java/jakarta/mail/internet/MimeMessage.java
index c1a71934..e832b097 100644
--- a/api/src/main/java/jakarta/mail/internet/MimeMessage.java
+++ b/api/src/main/java/jakarta/mail/internet/MimeMessage.java
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright (c) 1997, 2023 Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
+ * Copyright (c) 1997, 2024 Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
  *
  * This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the
  * terms of the Eclipse Public License v. 2.0, which is available at
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@
 import jakarta.mail.Multipart;
 import jakarta.mail.Session;
 import jakarta.mail.util.LineOutputStream;
+import jakarta.mail.util.StreamProvider;
 
 import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
 import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
@@ -44,6 +45,7 @@
 import java.util.Enumeration;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Properties;
+import java.util.ServiceConfigurationError;
 
 
 /**
@@ -243,9 +245,9 @@ public MimeMessage(MimeMessage source) throws MessagingException {
             strict = source.strict;
             source.writeTo(bos);
             bos.close();
-            InputStream bis = session.getStreamProvider().inputSharedByteArray(bos.toByteArray());
-            parse(bis);
-            bis.close();
+            try (InputStream bis = provider().inputSharedByteArray(bos.toByteArray())) {
+                parse(bis);
+            }
             saved = true;
         } catch (IOException ex) {
             // should never happen, but just in case...
@@ -1408,7 +1410,7 @@ protected InputStream getContentStream() throws MessagingException {
         if (contentStream != null)
             return ((SharedInputStream) contentStream).newStream(0, -1);
         if (content != null) {
-            return session.getStreamProvider().inputSharedByteArray(content);
+            return provider().inputSharedByteArray(content);
         }
         throw new MessagingException("No MimeMessage content");
     }
@@ -1915,7 +1917,7 @@ public void writeTo(OutputStream os, String[] ignoreList)
         // Else, the content is untouched, so we can just output it
         // First, write out the header
         Enumeration<String> hdrLines = getNonMatchingHeaderLines(ignoreList);
-        LineOutputStream los = session.getStreamProvider().outputLineStream(os, allowutf8);
+        LineOutputStream los = provider().outputLineStream(os, allowutf8);
         while (hdrLines.hasMoreElements())
             los.writeln(hdrLines.nextElement());
 
@@ -2320,4 +2322,23 @@ protected MimeMessage createMimeMessage(Session session)
             throws MessagingException {
         return new MimeMessage(session);
     }
+
+    private StreamProvider provider() throws MessagingException {
+        try {
+            try {
+                final Session s = this.session;
+                if (s != null) {
+                    return s.getStreamProvider();
+                } else {
+                    return Session.getDefaultInstance(System.getProperties(),
+                        null).getStreamProvider();
+                }
+            } catch (ServiceConfigurationError sce) {
+                throw new IllegalStateException(sce);
+            }
+        } catch (RuntimeException re) {
+            throw new MessagingException("Unable to get "
+                    + StreamProvider.class.getName(), re);
+        }
+    }
 }
diff --git a/doc/release/CHANGES.txt b/doc/release/CHANGES.txt
index 8d1675ee..efaf7d43 100644
--- a/doc/release/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/doc/release/CHANGES.txt
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ longer available.
 E  631  Session.getService does not use proper classloader in OSGI environment
 E  665  Jakarta Mail erroneously assumes that classes can be loaded from Thread#getContextClassLoader
 E  695  SharedFileInputStream should comply with spec
+E  710  Cannot parse messages without a session
 
 
 		  CHANGES IN THE 2.1.2 RELEASE
@@ -141,7 +142,7 @@ GH  334	gimap set labels error with some non english characters
 The following bugs have been fixed in the 1.6.1 release.
 
 GH  262	Some IMAP servers send EXPUNGE responses for unknown messages
-GH  278	BODYSTRUCTURE Parser fails on specific IMAP Server response 
+GH  278	BODYSTRUCTURE Parser fails on specific IMAP Server response
 GH  283	clean up connections when closing IMAPStore
 GH  287	Allow relaxed Content-Disposition parsing
 GH  289	use a different IMAP tag prefix for each connection
@@ -862,7 +863,7 @@ The following bugs have been fixed in the 1.1.2 release.
 <no id>	fix bug in SMTP output that sometimes duplicated "."
 <no id>	close SMTP transport on I/O error
 4230541	don't send SMTP NOOP unnecessarily
-4216666 IMAP provider INTERNALDATE formatter error, causing 
+4216666 IMAP provider INTERNALDATE formatter error, causing
 	problems during appendMessages()
 4227888 IMAP provider does not honor the UID item in its FetchProfile