MappingException while initializing entityManagerFactory

Question

I'm setting up a spring boot (2.1.2-RELEASE) application initializing a database context. The database context is already configured in a different spring application (3.2.18-RELEASE) and running properly. When starting the application I get the following error message:

org.hibernate.MappingException: property [identifiers] not found on entity [my.package.collection.CollectionIdentifier]

The initialization of the database is spring boot standard by providing the properties spring.datasource.* and spring.jpa.*

As visible in the code below the "identifiers" property is not available in the CollectionIdentifier entity. However it is present in the CollectionMaster entity. And that's the way it should be

CollectionMaster entity containing the "identifiers" property

@Entity
@Audited
public class CollectionMaster extends AbstractPersistentObject implements Identifiable<CollectionIdentifier> {

    private static final String COLLECTION_ID = "collection_id";

    @OneToMany(fetch=FetchType.EAGER, cascade=CascadeType.ALL, orphanRemoval=true)
    @JoinColumn(name=COLLECTION_ID)
    @Valid
    private Set<CollectionIdentifier> identifiers;  

    public final Set<CollectionIdentifier> getIdentifiers() {
        if(identifiers == null) {
            identifiers = new HashSet<>();
        }
        return identifiers;
    }

Identifiable interface

public interface Identifiable<R extends AbstractIdentifier> {

    Set<R> getIdentifiers();

CollectionIdentifier entity

@Entity
@Audited
public class CollectionIdentifier extends AbstractIdentifier implements Comparable<CollectionIdentifier> {

    @Column(length=SIZE_3)
    private String type;

    @Column(length=SIZE_3)
    private String identifierType;

    @NotNull
    @Column(nullable=false, length=SIZE_65)    
    private String value;

AbstractIdentifier mapped superclass

@MappedSuperclass
public abstract class AbstractIdentifier extends AbstractPersistentObject {

    @Column(length=SIZE_50)
    private String typeName;

AbstractPersistentObject mapped superclass

@MappedSuperclass
public abstract class AbstractPersistentObject implements PersistentObject, Serializable {

    @Id
    @Column(length = SIZE_32)
    private String id = IdGenerator.createId();

    @Version
    private Integer version;

The stacktrace of the error:

Caused by: org.hibernate.MappingException: property [identifiers] not found on entity [my.package.collection.CollectionIdentifier]
at org.hibernate.mapping.PersistentClass.getProperty(PersistentClass.java:514) ~[hibernate-core-5.3.7.Final.jar:5.3.7.Final]
at org.hibernate.mapping.PersistentClass.getProperty(PersistentClass.java:525) ~[hibernate-core-5.3.7.Final.jar:5.3.7.Final]
at org.hibernate.cfg.IndexOrUniqueKeySecondPass.doSecondPass(IndexOrUniqueKeySecondPass.java:83) ~[hibernate-core-5.3.7.Final.jar:5.3.7.Final]
at org.hibernate.boot.internal.InFlightMetadataCollectorImpl.processSecondPasses(InFlightMetadataCollectorImpl.java:1696) ~[hibernate-core-5.3.7.Final.jar:5.3.7.Final]
at org.hibernate.boot.internal.InFlightMetadataCollectorImpl.processSecondPasses(InFlightMetadataCollectorImpl.java:1664) ~[hibernate-core-5.3.7.Final.jar:5.3.7.Final]
at org.hibernate.boot.model.process.spi.MetadataBuildingProcess.complete(MetadataBuildingProcess.java:287) ~[hibernate-core-5.3.7.Final.jar:5.3.7.Final]
at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.metadata(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:904) ~[hibernate-core-5.3.7.Final.jar:5.3.7.Final]
at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.build(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:935) ~[hibernate-core-5.3.7.Final.jar:5.3.7.Final]
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.SpringHibernateJpaPersistenceProvider.createContainerEntityManagerFactory(SpringHibernateJpaPersistenceProvider.java:57) ~[spring-orm-5.1.4.RELEASE.jar:5.1.4.RELEASE]
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.createNativeEntityManagerFactory(LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:365) ~[spring-orm-5.1.4.RELEASE.jar:5.1.4.RELEASE]
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.buildNativeEntityManagerFactory(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:390) ~[spring-orm-5.1.4.RELEASE.jar:5.1.4.RELEASE]
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:377) ~[spring-orm-5.1.4.RELEASE.jar:5.1.4.RELEASE]
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:341) ~[spring-orm-5.1.4.RELEASE.jar:5.1.4.RELEASE]
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1804) ~[spring-beans-5.1.4.RELEASE.jar:5.1.4.RELEASE]
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1741) ~[spring-beans-5.1.4.RELEASE.jar:5.1.4.RELEASE]
... 16 common frames omitted

Now the question is why at initialization level the context claims that this property should be available in the CollectionIdentifier entity.

EDIT:

The error occurs for several entities but only if the hierarchy level is bigger than 1

e.g.:

CollectionMaster
    @OneToMany
    Set<CollectionIdentifier>

works, but

Collection
    @ManyToOne
    Set<CollectionMaster>
        @OneToMany
        Set<CollectionIdentifer>

throws the error

Answer 1

Answering my own question:

After a lot of debugging in the hibernate-core I found the issue in a place that I thought was totally unrelated.

The database entites are imported from a different module via maven. The model was designed with hibernate 4.x. The reason for the error is that all entities that caused the error have a deprecated @org.hibernate.annotations.Index on them. Removing the annotation fixes the problem - although I would consider this a hibernate bug.