hibernate/hibernate-orm · error · SchemaManagementException

VALIDATE is not valid SchemaManagementTool action for script

Error message

VALIDATE is not valid SchemaManagementTool action for script output

What it means

Thrown by SchemaManagementToolCoordinator.performScriptAction (SchemaManagementToolCoordinator.java:461) when the script-generation action group reaches the VALIDATE case. 'validate' is a meaningful action for the database target (compare mapped model with live schema), but writing a 'validation' to a script file makes no sense, so Hibernate rejects jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.action=validate with a SchemaManagementException instead of producing garbage output.

Source

Thrown at hibernate-core/src/main/java/org/hibernate/tool/schema/spi/SchemaManagementToolCoordinator.java:462

				break;
			}
			case UPDATE: {
				final var migrateDescriptor = buildScriptTargetDescriptor(
						configurationValues,
						MigrateSettingSelector.INSTANCE,
						serviceRegistry,
						configurationService
				);
				tool.getSchemaMigrator( configurationValues ).doMigration(
						metadata,
						executionOptions,
						contributed -> true,
						migrateDescriptor
				);
				break;
			}
			case VALIDATE: {
				throw new SchemaManagementException( "VALIDATE is not valid SchemaManagementTool action for script output" );
			}
		}
	}

	private static JpaTargetAndSourceDescriptor buildScriptTargetDescriptor(
			Map<?,?> configuration,
			SettingSelector settingSelector,
			ServiceRegistry serviceRegistry,
			ConfigurationService configurationService) {

		final Object scriptTargetSetting = settingSelector.getScriptTargetSetting( configuration );
		final Object scriptSourceSetting = settingSelector.getScriptSourceSetting( configuration );

		final var sourceType = sourceType( configuration, settingSelector, scriptSourceSetting );
		final boolean includesScripts = sourceType != SourceType.METADATA;
		if ( includesScripts && scriptSourceSetting == null ) {
			throw new SchemaManagementException(
					"Schema generation configuration indicated to include CREATE scripts, but no script was specified"

View on GitHub (pinned to fad1729dce)

Solutions

1. Remove jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.action=validate or set it to none/create/drop as appropriate.
2. If you want schema validation, use jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.database.action=validate or hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=validate instead of the scripts.action key.
3. If you intended to export DDL scripts, keep scripts.action=create (or create-only) and configure jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.create-target.
4. Audit property files for templated values applied uniformly to all schema-generation keys.

Example fix

// before
<property name="jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.action" value="validate"/>
<property name="jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.create-target" value="create.sql"/>

// after
<property name="jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.action" value="create"/>
<property name="jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.create-target" value="create.sql"/>
<property name="jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.database.action" value="validate"/>

String scriptsAction = (String) props.get("jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.action");
if ("validate".equalsIgnoreCase(scriptsAction)) {
    throw new IllegalStateException(
        "scripts.action=validate is not supported; use database.action=validate");
}

try {
    emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("pu", props);
} catch (PersistenceException e) {
    if (e.getCause() instanceof SchemaManagementException sme
            && sme.getMessage().contains("VALIDATE is not valid")) {
        props.remove("jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.action");
        // retry once with corrected config
        emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("pu", props);
    } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Setting jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.action=validate (or the deprecated javax.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.action=validate) while any script target is configured. Any other scripts.action value (none, create, drop, drop-and-create, create-only) routes to a valid case; only 'validate' hits the throwing branch.

Common situations: Teams that set both database.action and scripts.action to 'validate' for symmetry in test persistence-unit configs; Spring Boot tests adding jakarta.persistence.schema-generation.scripts.* properties for generated-DDL exports while also enabling validation; property templating loops that assign 'validate' to every schema-generation action key.

Related errors

• Unrecognized JPA schema management action setting: '%s'
• Unrecognized 'hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto' setting: '%s'
• Schema generation configuration indicated to include CREATE
• event name to resolve cannot be null
• Unrecognized 'hibernate.hbm2ddl.jdbc_metadata_extraction_str

AI-assisted analysis of hibernate/hibernate-orm@fad1729dce (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3cbf4c08d8b19e00. Report an issue: GitHub.