I'm using Hibernate 3.2.0.cr2 in a standalone application. It is configured to use a mySQL database. I observed the following, with the database shutdown

1. SessionFactory.openSession() returns not null session
2. session.isConnected returns true

The only way I'm notified that the database is down is when I perform session.createQuery... or similar operations (a JDBCConnectionException is thrown). Is there a clean mechanism(non exception throwing) in Hibernate to know if the DB connection is available or not?

Regards,
Lovett.

Detecting dead connections is an active process. Generally you use Hibernate with a connection pooling library, for example c3p0.
http://forum.hibernate.org/viewtopic.ph ... 84a270020e

In typical usage you configure c3p0 to test the connections periodically, at checkin at checkout or a combination depending on your application need. When c3p0 test the connection it will run a query on it ("select 1" is popular) or use some db specific tester.

Let me know if this helps. It doesn't answer your questions, put it does suggest that you may need to ask a slightly different one...

Marius