I have "entity-d" that extends "entity-c" that extends "entity-b" that extends "entity-a". The inheritance goes 4 levels deep, and Hibernate throws an Exception when I start the application. If I remove the last Entity (entity-d) so that it is only 3 levels deep, then the application starts without the Exception.

Here's the exception:

java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 2
at org.hibernate.persister.entity.JoinedSubclassEntityPersister.isNullableTable(JoinedSubclassEntityPersister.java:800)
at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.determineSubclassTableJoinType(AbstractEntityPersister.java:3814)
at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.createJoin(AbstractEntityPersister.java:3787)
at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.fromJoinFragment(AbstractEntityPersister.java:3739)
at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.generateSnapshotSelectString(AbstractEntityPersister.java:1791)
at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.doLateInit(AbstractEntityPersister.java:3991)
at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.postInstantiate(AbstractEntityPersister.java:4015)
at org.hibernate.internal.SessionFactoryImpl.<init>(SessionFactoryImpl.java:481)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1859)
at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl$4.perform(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:852)
at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl$4.perform(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:845)
at org.hibernate.boot.registry.classloading.internal.ClassLoaderServiceImpl.withTccl(ClassLoaderServiceImpl.java:398)
at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.build(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:844)

For more detail, see: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31040108/does-hibernate-have-a-limit-on-extending-inherited-entity-classes