I've got rid of this exception by adding import org.hibernate.annotations.Type; and this annotation @Type(type = "char") It goes further, but now it is hanging after giving this message 15:03:11,774 INFO [SchemaValidator] fetching database metadata anonymous wrote : | | 15:03:11,008 INFO [SettingsFactory] RDBMS: Adaptive Server Enterprise, version: Adaptive Server Enterprise/12.5.3/EBF 13528 ESD#7 ONE-OFF/P/Sun_svr4/OS 5.8/ase1253/1950/64-bit/FBO/Mon Apr 24 17:57:35 2006 | 15:03:11,008 INFO [SettingsFactory] JDBC driver: jConnect (TM) for JDBC (TM), version: jConnect (TM) for JDBC(TM)/5.5(Build 25827)/P/EBF13045/JDK13/Mon Oct 3 7:31:59 2005 | 15:03:11,039 INFO [Dialect] Using dialect: org.hibernate.dialect.SybaseDialect | 15:03:11,055 INFO [TransactionFactoryFactory] Transaction strategy: org.hibernate.ejb.transaction.JoinableCMTTransactionFactory | 15:03:11,055 INFO [TransactionManagerLookupFactory] instantiating TransactionManagerLookup: org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup | 15:03:11,071 INFO [TransactionManagerLookupFactory] instantiated TransactionManagerLookup | 15:03:11,071 INFO [SettingsFactory] Automatic flush during beforeCompletion(): disabled | 15:03:11,071 INFO [SettingsFactory] Automatic session close at end of transaction: disabled | 15:03:11,071 INFO [SettingsFactory] Scrollable result sets: enabled | 15:03:11,071 INFO [SettingsFactory] JDBC3 getGeneratedKeys(): disabled | 15:03:11,071 INFO [SettingsFactory] Connection release mode: auto | 15:03:11,071 INFO [SettingsFactory] Default batch fetch size: 1 | 15:03:11,071 INFO [SettingsFactory] Generate SQL with comments: disabled | 15:03:11,071 INFO [SettingsFactory] Order SQL updates by primary key: disabled | 15:03:11,071 INFO [SettingsFactory] Query translator: org.hibernate.hql.ast.ASTQueryTranslatorFactory | 15:03:11,086 INFO [ASTQueryTranslatorFactory] Using ASTQueryTranslatorFactory | 15:03:11,086 INFO [SettingsFactory] Query language substitutions: {} | 15:03:11,086 INFO [SettingsFactory] JPA-QL strict compliance: enabled | 15:03:11,086 INFO [SettingsFactory] Second-level cache: enabled | 15:03:11,086 INFO [SettingsFactory] Query cache: disabled | 15:03:11,086 INFO [SettingsFactory] Cache provider: org.hibernate.cache.NoCacheProvider | 15:03:11,086 INFO [SettingsFactory] Optimize cache for minimal puts: disabled | 15:03:11,086 INFO [SettingsFactory] Structured second-level cache entries: disabled | 15:03:11,102 INFO [SettingsFactory] Echoing all SQL to stdout | 15:03:11,102 INFO [SettingsFactory] Statistics: disabled | 15:03:11,102 INFO [SettingsFactory] Deleted entity synthetic identifier rollback: disabled | 15:03:11,102 INFO [SettingsFactory] Default entity-mode: pojo | 15:03:11,274 INFO [SessionFactoryImpl] building session factory | 15:03:11,774 INFO [SessionFactoryObjectFactory] Not binding factory to JNDI, no JNDI name configured | 15:03:11,774 INFO [SchemaValidator] Running schema validator | 15:03:11,774 INFO [SchemaValidator] fetching database metadata | | View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4033471#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...