I’ve been going crazy for the last several hours. I simply cannot configure Spring,

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Asked: May 23, 20262026-05-23T08:25:47+00:00 2026-05-23T08:25:47+00:00

I’ve been going crazy for the last several hours. I simply cannot configure Spring,

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I’ve been going crazy for the last several hours. I simply cannot configure Spring, Hibernate, with JPA.

I have a default GWT project. The only non default thing is I’ve decided to use JSON for communicating with the server both ways. I’m using jax-rs (jersey) to do this.

My war directory looks like this BEFORE attempting to add spring or hibernate to the project:

war
war/project-name
war/WEB-INF
war/WEB-INF/classes (and subdirectories)
war/lib
war/lib/asm-3.1.jar
war/lib/flexjson-2.1.jar
war/lib/gwt-servlet.jar
war/lib/jackson-core-asl-1.7.1.jar
war/lib/jackson-jaxrs-1.7.1.jar
war/lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.7.1.jar
war/lib/jackson-xc-1.7.1.jar
war/lib/jersey-client-1.7.jar
war/lib/jersey-core-1.7.jar
war/lib/jersey-json-1.7.jar
war/lib/jersey-server-1.7.jar
war/lib/jettison-1.1.jar
war/lib/jsr311-api-1.1.1.jar
war/web.xml

Not so bad, 13 JARS and a single XML file containing a few lines. It’s pretty compact, I have the JSON going back and forth as expected. Perfect. Now all I have to do is add the ORM. I’ve used Spring and hibernate in past projects but I’ve never really configured them.

The problem is, how do you find out how to configure them? If you google it, you will find millions of tutorials (most of them out of date). The hibernate tutorial is great and I’m almost 100% certain I could get plain hibernate working easily (in fact I did a long time ago). But I want to stick with industry conventions and use Hibernate with Spring and JPA.

I found this tutorial here, which seems to be up to date:
http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2010/05/gwt-2-spring-3-jpa-2-hibernate-35.html

But I’m going in circles. Problem after problem. After I start the GWT app I get this:

log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger (org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader).
log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly.
log4j:WARN See http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/faq.html#noconfig for more info.
[WARN] Server class 'javax.validation.Validation' could not be found in the web app, but was found on the system classpath
   [WARN] Adding classpath entry 'file:/Users/jose/springsource/sts-2.5.2.SR1/plugins/com.google.gwt.eclipse.sdkbundle_2.3.0.r36v201105191508/gwt-2.3.0/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar' to the web app classpath for this session
   For additional info see: file:/Users/jose/springsource/sts-2.5.2.SR1/plugins/com.google.gwt.eclipse.sdkbundle_2.3.0.r36v201105191508/gwt-2.3.0/doc/helpInfo/webAppClassPath.html
Starting Jetty on port 8888
   [WARN] Failed startup of context com.google.gwt.dev.shell.jetty.JettyLauncher$WebAppContextWithReload@48270dbf{/,/Users/jose/workspace/MyProject/war}
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'entityManagerFactory' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is javax.persistence.PersistenceException: [PersistenceUnit: MyPersistenceUnit] Unable to configure EntityManagerFactory
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1420)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:288)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:190)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:563)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:895)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:425)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.createWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:276)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:197)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:47)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.startContext(ContextHandler.java:543)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.Context.startContext(Context.java:136)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.startContext(WebAppContext.java:1220)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.doStart(ContextHandler.java:513)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.doStart(WebAppContext.java:448)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.shell.jetty.JettyLauncher$WebAppContextWithReload.doStart(JettyLauncher.java:463)
    at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:39)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.doStart(HandlerWrapper.java:130)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.RequestLogHandler.doStart(RequestLogHandler.java:115)
    at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:39)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.doStart(HandlerWrapper.java:130)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.Server.doStart(Server.java:222)
    at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:39)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.shell.jetty.JettyLauncher.start(JettyLauncher.java:667)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.DevMode.doStartUpServer(DevMode.java:500)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.DevModeBase.startUp(DevModeBase.java:1055)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.DevModeBase.run(DevModeBase.java:804)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.DevMode.main(DevMode.java:309)
Caused by: javax.persistence.PersistenceException: [PersistenceUnit: MyPersistenceUnit] Unable to configure EntityManagerFactory
    at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.configure(Ejb3Configuration.java:378)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence.createEntityManagerFactory(HibernatePersistence.java:56)
    at javax.persistence.Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(Persistence.java:48)
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean.createNativeEntityManagerFactory(LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:92)
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:308)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1477)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1417)
    ... 30 more
Caused by: org.hibernate.HibernateException: Unable to get the default Bean Validation factory
    at org.hibernate.cfg.beanvalidation.BeanValidationActivator.applyDDL(BeanValidationActivator.java:127)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.applyBeanValidationConstraintsOnDDL(Configuration.java:1704)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.applyConstraintsToDDL(Configuration.java:1654)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.secondPassCompile(Configuration.java:1445)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildMappings(Configuration.java:1375)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.buildMappings(Ejb3Configuration.java:1519)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.EventListenerConfigurator.configure(EventListenerConfigurator.java:193)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.configure(Ejb3Configuration.java:1100)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.configure(Ejb3Configuration.java:282)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.configure(Ejb3Configuration.java:366)
    ... 36 more
Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.beanvalidation.BeanValidationActivator.applyDDL(BeanValidationActivator.java:118)
    ... 45 more
Caused by: org.hibernate.HibernateException: Unable to build the default ValidatorFactory
    at org.hibernate.cfg.beanvalidation.TypeSafeActivator.getValidatorFactory(TypeSafeActivator.java:383)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.beanvalidation.TypeSafeActivator.applyDDL(TypeSafeActivator.java:109)
    ... 50 more
Caused by: javax.validation.ValidationException: Unable to find a default provider
    at javax.validation.Validation$GenericBootstrapImpl.configure(Validation.java:264)
    at javax.validation.Validation.buildDefaultValidatorFactory(Validation.java:111)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.beanvalidation.TypeSafeActivator.getValidatorFactory(TypeSafeActivator.java:380)
    ... 51 more
   [WARN] Nested in org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'entityManagerFactory' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is javax.persistence.PersistenceException: [PersistenceUnit: MyPersistenceUnit] Unable to configure EntityManagerFactory:
javax.validation.ValidationException: Unable to find a default provider
    at javax.validation.Validation$GenericBootstrapImpl.configure(Validation.java:264)
    at javax.validation.Validation.buildDefaultValidatorFactory(Validation.java:111)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.beanvalidation.TypeSafeActivator.getValidatorFactory(TypeSafeActivator.java:380)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.beanvalidation.TypeSafeActivator.applyDDL(TypeSafeActivator.java:109)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.beanvalidation.BeanValidationActivator.applyDDL(BeanValidationActivator.java:118)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.applyBeanValidationConstraintsOnDDL(Configuration.java:1704)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.applyConstraintsToDDL(Configuration.java:1654)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.secondPassCompile(Configuration.java:1445)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildMappings(Configuration.java:1375)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.buildMappings(Ejb3Configuration.java:1519)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.EventListenerConfigurator.configure(EventListenerConfigurator.java:193)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.configure(Ejb3Configuration.java:1100)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.configure(Ejb3Configuration.java:282)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.configure(Ejb3Configuration.java:366)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence.createEntityManagerFactory(HibernatePersistence.java:56)
    at javax.persistence.Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(Persistence.java:48)
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean.createNativeEntityManagerFactory(LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:92)
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:308)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1477)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1417)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:288)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:190)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:563)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:895)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:425)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.createWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:276)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:197)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:47)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.startContext(ContextHandler.java:543)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.Context.startContext(Context.java:136)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.startContext(WebAppContext.java:1220)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.doStart(ContextHandler.java:513)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.doStart(WebAppContext.java:448)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.shell.jetty.JettyLauncher$WebAppContextWithReload.doStart(JettyLauncher.java:463)
    at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:39)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.doStart(HandlerWrapper.java:130)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.RequestLogHandler.doStart(RequestLogHandler.java:115)
    at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:39)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.doStart(HandlerWrapper.java:130)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.Server.doStart(Server.java:222)
    at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:39)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.shell.jetty.JettyLauncher.start(JettyLauncher.java:667)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.DevMode.doStartUpServer(DevMode.java:500)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.DevModeBase.startUp(DevModeBase.java:1055)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.DevModeBase.run(DevModeBase.java:804)
    at com.google.gwt.dev.DevMode.main(DevMode.java:309)

Here is what my war directly looks like currently:

war
war/project-name
war/WEB-INF
war/WEB-INF/classes (and subdirectories)
war/META-INF/persistence.xml
war/lib
war/lib/antlr-2.7.6.jar
war/lib/aopalliance.jar
war/lib/asm-3.1.jar
war/lib/c3p0-0.9.1.jar
war/lib/commons-collections-3.1.jar
war/lib/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar
war/lib/dom4j-1.6.1.jar
war/lib/flexjson-2.1.jar
war/lib/gwt-servlet.jar
war/lib/hibernate-jpa-2.0-api-1.0.0.Final.jar
war/lib/hibernate3.jar
war/lib/jackson-core-asl-1.7.1.jar
war/lib/jackson-jaxrs-1.7.1.jar
war/lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.7.1.jar
war/lib/javassist-3.12.0.GA.jar
war/lib/jackson-xc-1.7.1.jar
war/lib/jersey-client-1.7.jar
war/lib/jersey-core-1.7.jar
war/lib/jersey-json-1.7.jar
war/lib/jersey-server-1.7.jar
war/lib/jettison-1.1.jar
war/lib/jsr311-api-1.1.1.jar
war/lib/jta-1.1.jar
war/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar
war/lib/mysql-connector-java-5.1.16-bin.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.aop-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.asm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.aspects-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.beans-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.context-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.context.support-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.core-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.expression-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.instrument-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.instrument.tomcat-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.jdbc-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.jms-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.orm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.oxm-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.test-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.transaction-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.web-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.web.portlet-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.web.servlet-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/org.springframework.web.struts-3.0.5.RELEASE.jar
war/lib/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar
war/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar
war/applicationContext.xml
war/web.xml

Here’s my web.xml

<web-app>

    <listener>
        <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
    </listener>

    <!-- Servlets -->

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>Jersey REST Service</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.ServletContainer</servlet-class>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>com.sun.jersey.config.property.packages</param-name>
            <param-value>com.jose.server</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>com.sun.jersey.api.json.POJOMappingFeature</param-name>
            <param-value>true</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>Jersey REST Service</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/rest/*</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

    <!-- Default page to serve -->
    <welcome-file-list>
        <welcome-file>MyProject.html</welcome-file>
    </welcome-file-list>

</web-app>

Here’s my persistence.xml:

<persistence xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd"
    version="2.0">

    <persistence-unit name="MyPersistenceUnit" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
        <provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider>

        <properties>
            <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="update"/>
            <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="false"/>
            <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5InnoDBDialect"/>
            <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class" value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"/>
            <property name="hibernate.connection.url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost/blah"/>
            <property name="hibernate.connection.username" value="sa"/>
            <property name="hibernate.connection.password" value=""/>

            <property name="hibernate.c3p0.min_size" value="5"/>
            <property name="hibernate.c3p0.max_size" value="20"/>
            <property name="hibernate.c3p0.timeout" value="300"/>
            <property name="hibernate.c3p0.max_statements" value="50"/>
            <property name="hibernate.c3p0.idle_test_period" value="3000"/>
        </properties>

    </persistence-unit>

</persistence>

Does anyone know why I’m encountering the error above?
Can someone refer me to a very simple (AND update to date!) tutorial on how to configure these frameworks? It’s not that I don’t understand hibernate. I’ve used it for the last 3 years (although only heavily in the past few months in the form of Grails).

Thanks

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1 Answer

Editorial Team · Answer 1 · 2026-05-23T08:25:48+00:00

Editorial Team

2026-05-23T08:25:48+00:00Added an answer on May 23, 2026 at 8:25 am

It seems the application is looking for a validation provider. Add hibernate-validator 4.x to your classpath.

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