Hi,

I'm running Hibernate deployed on WebLogic 8.1 and am deploying hibernate3.jar with my ear file.

As soon as the bean code hits the HibernateUtil class to set up the session e.g.

if (HibernateUtil.currentSession() == null) {
System.out.println("Session is null");
} else {
System.out.println("Session is not null");
}

, the following error is generated:

Initial SessionFactory creation failed.java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/hibernate/cfg/Configuration

From the looks of things, it seems that hibernate3.jar cannot be located but from my understanding, if the jar is included in the ear, then WebLogic should automatically use the jar and add it to it's classpath.
I've also tried copying the hibernate3.jar to the weblogic server/lib dir but again no luck.

Generally Appservers only load Jars from the EAR if they're explicitly referenced by the Classpath property in the Manifest.MF of another jar or war that's being loaded.

That is, jars referenced as EJB jars and WARs are loaded then all the jars they depend on (according to the Classpath property in the Manifest) are loaded, and so on until all required jars are loaded.

I'm not sure if this is the case with WebLogic but it's something to check.

Cheers for the info EdC, checked the manifest file for the ear file and hibernate3. jar was missing from the classpath attribute for the manifest.

However, even with that repaired I'm still getting the same problem i.e.:
Initial SessionFactory creation failed.java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/hibernate/cfg/Configuration

Hibernate3.jar is the first of many hibernate required jars to be included in the ear and I'm wondering if it's reporting this error because one of the other required jars could be missing? That's clutching at straws though, as the exception explicity specifies org/hibernate/cfg/Configuration