The user guide says:

"However, if the entity class is final, Javassist will not create a proxy and you will get a POJO even when you only need a proxy reference. In this case, you could proxy an interface that this particular entity implements, as illustrated by the following example."

Example 117 in that section shows how an entity can be lazily loaded for a final class if @Proxy(proxyClass=...) is configured.

Steve Ebersole, IIUC, there should be no exception in that case.

BTW, for the fix for HHH-13891 Open , ProxyFactoryHelper#validateProxyability throws a HibernateException which is ulitmately caught and logged as warning here.

Do you think it makes sense to throw an exception in this case (as opposed to logging as a warning)?

Sanne Grinovero, does this cover the case you mentioned?