Hi Maciej
Yes, I think you are right, c3p0 does not support this call even in the latest version. However the query it is failing on was not in 5.4.0.CR1, it was changed due to the shortText field change which happened between 5.4.0.CR1 and 5.4.0.Final.
We will try DBCP 1.4, which I think should work. I wanted to post here in case anyone had a recommendation for which pool to use, and in case anyone else hits this error.