org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: hibernate.cfg.xml

Pankaj 16 Comments

If you are looking for a solution for org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: hibernate.cfg.xml then you have come to right place. Recently I was working on a Hibernate project with latest version 4.3.5.Final and everything was going smooth. Suddenly I lost my internet connection for sometime and the project stopped working and it was throwing following exception.

Copy
Initial SessionFactory creation failed.org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: hibernate.cfg.xml
org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: hibernate.cfg.xml
	at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:2163)
	at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.configure(Configuration.java:2075)
	at com.journaldev.hibernate.util.HibernateUtil.buildSessionFactory(HibernateUtil.java:16)
	at com.journaldev.hibernate.util.HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory(HibernateUtil.java:34)
	at com.journaldev.hibernate.main.HQLExamples.main(HQLExamples.java:20)
Caused by: org.dom4j.DocumentException: hibernate.org Nested exception: hibernate.org
	at org.dom4j.io.SAXReader.read(SAXReader.java:484)
	at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:2155)
	... 4 more
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
	at com.journaldev.hibernate.util.HibernateUtil.buildSessionFactory(HibernateUtil.java:29)
	at com.journaldev.hibernate.util.HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory(HibernateUtil.java:34)
	at com.journaldev.hibernate.main.HQLExamples.main(HQLExamples.java:20)
Caused by: org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: hibernate.cfg.xml
	at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:2163)
	at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.configure(Configuration.java:2075)
	at com.journaldev.hibernate.util.HibernateUtil.buildSessionFactory(HibernateUtil.java:16)
	... 2 more
Caused by: org.dom4j.DocumentException: hibernate.org Nested exception: hibernate.org
	at org.dom4j.io.SAXReader.read(SAXReader.java:484)
	at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:2155)
	... 4 more

org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: hibernate.cfg.xml

From above exception stack trace, it seems like Hibernate is trying to load DTD file to validate the hibernate.cfg.xml file and it was failing because there was no internet connection.

I use Hibernate Tools to generate my hibernate configuration and mapping files.

My hibernate.cfg.xml file had below DTD DocType definition.

Copy
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
		"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN"
		"http://hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">

Ideally it should be not the problem because the DTD file is present in the hibernate jars and it should load it from there. But it was not happening. After spending some time looking for online help, I was able to find two ways to solve this issue.

Hibernate Configuration File Location
The first solution was to provide the DTD file location in the system using classpath. So the DocType that worked offline would be;
```
Copy
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration SYSTEM 
    "classpath://org/hibernate/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
```
Use SourceForge DTD URL with SYSTEM
Another solution I found working is when I change the DTD URL to SourceForge and changed the declaration from PUBLIC to SYSTEM.
So below will also work if your system is offline.
```
Copy
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration SYSTEM 
    "http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
```
This seems strange because ideally it should be working for DTD URL from hibernate.org because Hibernate 4 always gives following warning.
```
Copy
WARN: HHH000223: Recognized obsolete hibernate namespace http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/. 
Use namespace http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/ instead. Refer to Hibernate 3.6 Migration Guide!
```

This is good to know because sometimes our production servers are behind the firewall and may not have access to internet. These tricks can become handy in those cases. Same configurations will also work for hibernate mapping xml files.

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Comments

Dnyanesh says
January 4, 2019 at 11:37 am
Thanks Pankaj. Its a great help even I faced same issue and resolved with your solution.
Reply
mahesh Rathikindi says
October 3, 2018 at 2:19 am
Oct 03, 2018 2:41:01 PM org.hibernate.annotations.common.reflection.java.JavaReflectionManager
INFO: HCANN000001: Hibernate Commons Annotations {4.0.5.Final}
Oct 03, 2018 2:41:01 PM org.hibernate.Version logVersion
INFO: HHH000412: Hibernate Core {4.3.11.Final}
Oct 03, 2018 2:41:01 PM org.hibernate.cfg.Environment
INFO: HHH000206: hibernate.properties not found
Oct 03, 2018 2:41:01 PM org.hibernate.cfg.Environment buildBytecodeProvider
INFO: HHH000021: Bytecode provider name : javassist
Oct 03, 2018 2:41:01 PM org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration configure
INFO: HHH000043: Configuring from resource: com/sathya/config/hibernate.cfg.xml
Oct 03, 2018 2:41:01 PM org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration getConfigurationInputStream
INFO: HHH000040: Configuration resource: com/sathya/config/hibernate.cfg.xml
Exception in thread “main” org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: com/sathya/config/hibernate.cfg.xml
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:2165)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.configure(Configuration.java:2077)
at com.sathya.test.CreateAccount.main(CreateAccount.java:17)
Caused by: org.dom4j.DocumentException: Error on line 6 of document : The string “–” is not permitted within comments. Nested exception: The string “–” is not permitted within comments.
at org.dom4j.io.SAXReader.read(SAXReader.java:482)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:2157)
… 2 more
Reply
devendra says
May 27, 2018 at 8:27 am
log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger (org.hibernate.cfg.Environment).
log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly.
log4j:WARN See http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/faq.html#noconfig for more info.
Exception in thread “main” org.hibernate.MappingNotFoundException: resource: hibernateproj.dto.userdetail not found
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.addResource(Configuration.java:569)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.parseMappingElement(Configuration.java:1593)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.parseSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1561)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:1540)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:1514)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.configure(Configuration.java:1434)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.configure(Configuration.java:1420)
at hibernateproj.model.hibernateTest.main(hibernateTest.java:14)
Reply
- devendra says
  May 27, 2018 at 8:28 am
  i am created simple java project
  why cfg .xmlnot found
  Reply
sachindra says
April 20, 2018 at 12:10 am
changing URL “http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd” has worked for me. Thanks
Reply
GunaSanthu says
April 18, 2018 at 7:42 am
Am getting error could not parse configuration :hibernate. Christmas. XML file. Please any one give solution for this problem ..
Reply
Hermenegildo says
November 30, 2017 at 2:04 am
for me that error was caused because i have put the hibernate.config.xml in /WEB-INF. So i removed and /src/main/resources. Ind in web.xml file i wrote:
contextConfigLocation
classpath:hibernate.cfg.xml
classpath:spring-config.xml
Reply
barani says
February 15, 2017 at 3:56 am
Thanks!!! I have been struggling with this error for over 2 hours now (which suddenly popped up from nowhere).
Reply
Sudhir Kumar Ojha says
July 19, 2016 at 2:15 am
I am facing following problem
org.hibernate.MappingException: An AnnotationConfiguration instance is required to use
Reply
Parjanya Roy says
February 17, 2016 at 3:54 am
Thanks ,
Even though I was connected to the internet somehow the proxy was blocking the url access. So this worked like a charm .. Thnx a million
Reply
Swapnil Solunke says
October 28, 2015 at 11:47 pm
Hello Pankaj,
Thanks for this solution. I was really getting problems when i used to offline but now my problem is solved.
Thanks
Regards
Swapnil Solunke
Reply
Niraj Gurav says
June 1, 2015 at 11:45 pm
This one is a temporary solution. Your Hibernate jars contains dtd for validating your configuration xml. Extract ‘hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd’ and put it in some directory in your project structure (in this case, I have put it in Project root directory). Add your dtd location to DOCTYPE declaration.
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration SYSTEM "hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
It worked for me. It works when system is offline. Fetches DTD from your local system.
Thanks Pankaj. It is very similar to your classpath solution. But with classpath it says :
Caused by: org.dom4j.DocumentException: unknown protocol: classpath Nested exception: unknown protocol: classpath
I might be missing something.
Reply
Anoop Abbot says
March 30, 2015 at 4:37 am
I’m hitting the below error:
log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger (org.hibernate.cfg.Environment).
log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly.
Exception in thread “main” org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: hibernate.cfg.xml
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:1491)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.configure(Configuration.java:1425)
at com.javatpoint.mypackage.StoreData.main(StoreData.java:13)
Caused by: org.dom4j.DocumentException: Connection timed out: connect Nested exception: Connection timed out: connect
at org.dom4j.io.SAXReader.read(SAXReader.java:484)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:1481)
… 2 more
and this is the hibernate.cfg.xml file which i coded…
com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
jdbc:mysql://localhost/abcde
root
nancy123456
org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect
update
Please anyone have a look and provide it’s solution.
Thanks for you help.
Reply
Sairam Rajulapati says
September 22, 2014 at 7:29 pm
Hi Pankaj,
i try to configure hibernates on offline, according to your suggestion i changed my hibernate configuration file
to
still now i got some error like following one
Exception in thread “main” org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: hibernate.cfg.xml
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:1491)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.configure(Configuration.java:1425)
at com.hib.bo.StoreData.main(StoreData.java:14)
Caused by: org.dom4j.DocumentException: hibernate.sourceforge.net Nested exception: hibernate.sourceforge.net
at org.dom4j.io.SAXReader.read(SAXReader.java:484)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.doConfigure(Configuration.java:1481)
… 2 more
can u suggestion me for how to resolve the problem( configure the hibernate in offline)…
Reply
Rakesh says
June 15, 2014 at 9:20 pm
Hi dude,
Could you post hibernate interview questions? that would help my interview preparation also I could learn more about hibernate.
Reply

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org.hibernate.HibernateException: Could not parse configuration: hibernate.cfg.xml

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