Hibernate version:
Hibernate 2.1

Code between sessionFactory.openSession() and session.close():Session session = HibernateAbstractSessionUtil.getCurrentSession();
Transaction tx = session.beginTransaction();
CompanyOpsArea coa = (CompanyOpsArea) session.load(CompanyOpsArea.class, new Long(1));
tx.commit();
session.close();

Name and version of the database you are using:
Oracle 9

All data is versioned. After the commit is done, I noticed the version column in the database is incremented.
My questions is:

Why is the version property incremented on a simple read?

This is causing a lot of StaleObjectStaleException when the some CompanyOpsArea is read by multiple concurrent transactions.

Shouldn't the version property really change only when actual data changes?

What are my options here (other than evicting the object before I commit)?

What kind of impact would second-level (fully-transactional JBOSS)caching on this?

Its not.

For whatever reason Hibernate thinks your objects *are* dirty; thats the only time that the version propertied are incremented. So you are doing something in your code to make Hibernate think that. Probably something like using an Interceptor incorrectly, or modifying values in getters/setters, etc.

God bless you.

We had a property for ChangeDateTime that was always set to new GregorianCalendar().So the object was always dirty.