Unable to resolve name [org.hibernate.cache.ehcache.EhCacheRegionFactory] as strategy [org.hibernate.cache.spi.RegionFactory]

Question

I was trying to upgrade my Spring and Hibernate version. I was using hibernate 3 and now I have upgraded to hibernate 4.3.6. After upgrading I am getting a weird issue in ehcache implementation.

As I have upgraded to hibernate 4, i have added one entry as:

<prop key="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class">org.hibernate.cache.ehcache.EhCacheRegionFactory </prop>

And now I am getting the exception as:

Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'sessionFactory' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/config/persistence.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.hibernate.service.spi.ServiceException: Unable to create requested service [org.hibernate.cache.spi.RegionFactory]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1566)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:539)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:476)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:302)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:230)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:298)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:193)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.findAutowireCandidates(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:1127)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.doResolveDependency(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:1051)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.resolveDependency(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:949)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor$AutowiredMethodElement.inject(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:603)
    ... 124 more
Caused by: org.hibernate.service.spi.ServiceException: Unable to create requested service [org.hibernate.cache.spi.RegionFactory]
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.createService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:261)
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.initializeService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:225)
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.getService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:206)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.SettingsFactory.buildSettings(SettingsFactory.java:295)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSettingsInternal(Configuration.java:2444)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSettings(Configuration.java:2440)
    at org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.LocalSessionFactoryBuilder.buildSettings(LocalSessionFactoryBuilder.java:343)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1857)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1930)
    at org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.LocalSessionFactoryBuilder.buildSessionFactory(LocalSessionFactoryBuilder.java:372)
    at org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.LocalSessionFactoryBean.buildSessionFactory(LocalSessionFactoryBean.java:454)
    at org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.LocalSessionFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(LocalSessionFactoryBean.java:439)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1625)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1562)
    ... 134 more
Caused by: org.hibernate.HibernateException: could not instantiate RegionFactory [org.hibernate.cache.ehcache.EhCacheRegionFactory]
    at org.hibernate.cache.internal.RegionFactoryInitiator.initiateService(RegionFactoryInitiator.java:101)
    at org.hibernate.cache.internal.RegionFactoryInitiator.initiateService(RegionFactoryInitiator.java:46)
    at org.hibernate.boot.registry.internal.StandardServiceRegistryImpl.initiateService(StandardServiceRegistryImpl.java:105)
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.createService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:251)
    ... 147 more
Caused by: org.hibernate.boot.registry.selector.spi.StrategySelectionException: Unable to resolve name [org.hibernate.cache.ehcache.EhCacheRegionFactory] as strategy [org.hibernate.cache.spi.RegionFactory]
    at org.hibernate.boot.registry.selector.internal.StrategySelectorImpl.selectStrategyImplementor(StrategySelectorImpl.java:128)
    at org.hibernate.cache.internal.RegionFactoryInitiator.initiateService(RegionFactoryInitiator.java:87)
    ... 150 more

The libraries used are:

antlr.jar
aopalliance.jar
asm-3.3.jar
aspectj-1.7.0.jar
aspectjweaver-1.5.4.jar
backport-util-concurrent-1.1_01.jar
c3p0.jar
cglib-2.2.2.jar
commons-beanutils-1.7.0.jar
commons-codec-1.6.jar
commons-collections-3.2.1.jar
commons-dbcp-1.3.jar
commons-lang3-3.1.jar
commons-logging-1.1.1.jar
commons-pool-1.6.jar
dom4j-1.6.1.jar
ehcache-1.5.0.jar
gson-2.3.1.jar
hibernate-commons-annotations-4.0.5.Final.jar
hibernate-core-4.3.6.Final.jar
hibernate-core-4.3.7.Final.jar
hibernate-ehcache-4.3.7.Final.jar
hibernate-entitymanager-4.3.7.Final.jar
hibernate-jpa-2.1-api-1.0.0.Final.jar
hibernate-validator-5.1.3.Final.jar
jakarta-oro.jar
jboss-logging-3.2.0.Final.jar
jdom.jar
jsr107cache-1.0.jar
log4j-1.2.17.jar
ojdbc14.jar
poi-3.6-20091214.jar
samlutility.jar
sitemesh-2.4.2.jar
slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar
slf4j-api-1.7.7.jar
slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar
spring-aop-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-beans-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-context-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-context-support-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-core-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-expression-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-jdbc-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-jms-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-orm-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-security-config-3.2.5.RELEASE.jar
spring-security-core-3.2.5.RELEASE.jar
spring-security-taglibs-3.2.5.RELEASE.jar
spring-security-web-3.2.5.RELEASE.jar
spring-tx-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-web-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-webmvc-4.1.3.RELEASE.jar
validation-api-1.1.0.Final.jar
xmlsec-1.4.5.jar

I tried all the possible ways but this is not fixing this issue.

Answer 1

In Hibernate 4, if you want to use Ehcache, you must add a specific dependency: hibernate-ehcache

But it embeds Ehcache 2.4.3 So you should exclude the embeded Ehcache dependency.

<dependency>
 <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
 <artifactId>hibernate-ehcache</artifactId>
 <version>4.1.9.Final</version>
 <exclusions>
     <exclusion>
         <groupId>net.sf.ehcache</groupId>
         <artifactId>ehcache-core</artifactId>
     </exclusion>
 </exclusions>
</dependency>

For Hibernate-ehcache from version 5.1.0.Final which uses Ehcache 2.10.1 the same exclusion looks slightly different (ehcache instead of ehcache-core)

<dependency>
 <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
 <artifactId>hibernate-ehcache</artifactId>
 <version>5.1.0.Final</version>
 <exclusions>
     <exclusion>
         <groupId>net.sf.ehcache</groupId>
         <artifactId>ehcache</artifactId>
     </exclusion>
 </exclusions>
</dependency>

and then depending on the version of ehcache, you need to add ehcache or ehcache-core

Up to 2.6.x:

<dependency>
 <groupId>net.sf.ehcache</groupId>
 <artifactId>ehcache-core</artifactId>
 <version>2.5.7</version>
</dependency>

for 2.7 and above

<dependency>
 <groupId>net.sf.ehcache</groupId>
 <artifactId>ehcache</artifactId>
 <version>2.7.0</version> <!--  or above --> 
</dependency>

and for 3.0 and above

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.ehcache</groupId>
    <artifactId>ehcache</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.0</version>
</dependency>