I set "show SQL" to true and this is (well, with the variable names and db obfuscated) the insert I'm trying to do:

Hibernate: insert into <our database> (VAR1, VAR2, VAR3, VAR4, VAR5, VAR6, VAR7, VAR8, VAR9, VAR10, VAR11, VAR12, VAR13, VAR14, VAR15, VAR16, VAR17, VAR18) values (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?) Jul 30, 2012 10:20:21 AM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.spi.SqlExceptionHelper logExceptions
WARN: SQL Error: 926, SQLState: 42000
Jul 30, 2012 10:20:21 AM org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.spi.SqlExceptionHelper logExceptions
ERROR: ORA-00926: missing VALUES keyword

But, in MySQL, the insert works, and the dependent test call to update succeeds...

Hibernate: insert into <our database> (VAR1, VAR2, VAR3, VAR4, VAR5, VAR6, VAR7, VAR8, VAR9, VAR10, VAR11, VAR12, VAR13, VAR14, VAR15, VAR16, VAR17, VAR18) values (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)
Hibernate: select ...
Read succeeded for <id>
Hibernate: select ...
Hibernate: update ...
Update succeeded for <id>

But Oracle bails on the insert. I originally used the plain Oracle Dialect, and saw that it was deprecated in 4.1.4 (which I am using). In the off chance that could be the problem, I changed it to org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle10gDialect -- no difference.

What would make Oracle think that Hibernate didn't send the values keyword, since Hibernate appears to have used it???

Thanks!!

Maffy

Found the problem.
One of my variables was a keyword. Doh! So the interpretation of the VALUES keyword was lost.