Does any one know what causes this? What do I do to get around it either using annotations or using XML? The exact problem is that when JPA invokes TableGenerator it execute the following SQL command on Derby: select next_hi from hibernate_unique_key for read only with rs It encouters the following error: javax.persistence.PersistenceException: org.hibernate.exception.SQLGrammarException: could not get or update next value Caused by: java.sql.SQLException: Table/View 'HIBERNATE_UNIQUE_KEY' does not exist. Derby does not have sequence tables. We are using: @Id @Column(name="UserID") @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.AUTO) The identity column in Derby is defined in the create table command as: UserID INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY, Many thanks. Regards, Rich Katz View the original post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4227886#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...