Weblogic 12c HibernateValidator ClassLoading issue - weblogic

Question

Validation framework which has been rolled up as part of the JEE6 spec (WL12). Both the WL10 and WL12 versions of our application were deployed with the following open source libraries:
JSR-303 / validation-api.jar (version 1.0)
Hibernate Validator (version 4.2.0)
However, the libraries are also bundled with WL 12 (modules directory). Note that the Hibernate Validator version is slightly different.
modules.javax.validation_1.0.0.jar
hibernate.validator_4.1.0.jar
With our WL12 run we are getting below exception:
javax.validation.ValidationException: Unable to get available provider
Attempted Solutions
Our next attempt was to use the WebLogic FilteringClassLoader to prefer the libraries from our application (APP-INF/lib directory) by specifying them in the weblogic-application.xml file (i.e. choose our versions over WebLogic’s). We were already doing this for several other open source libraries in WL10:
<prefer-application-packages>
<package-name>com.google.common.*</package-name>
<package-name>org.apache.commons.lang.*</package-name>
<package-name>org.apache.commons.logging.*</package-name>
<package-name>org.apache.commons.beanutils.*</package-name>
<package-name>org.apache.commons.collections.*</package-name>
<package-name>antlr.*</package-name>
<package-name>javax.validation.*</package-name>
<package-name>org.hibernate.validator.*</package-name>
</prefer-application-packages>
After making that change, our application experienced the following run-time error trying to process any request that makes use of the validation framework:
javax.validation.ValidationException: Unable to get available provider resolvers.
at javax.validation.Validation$GenericBootstrapImpl.configure(Validation.java:259)
at web20.hibernate.validation.ValidatorFactoryConfigurator.getValidatorFactory(ValidatorFactoryConfigurator.java:39)
at web20.hibernate.validation.ValidationHandlerImpl.handleHibernateValidations(ValidationHandlerImpl.java:180)
at web20.hibernate.validation.ValidationHandlerImpl.performValidation(ValidationHandlerImpl.java:255)
at web20.hibernate.validation.ValidationHandlerImpl.validateAndFormatMessages(ValidationHandlerImpl.java:302)
at web20.hibernate.validation.ValidationHandlerImpl.validateUsingHibernateGroups(ValidationHandlerImpl.java:113)
at service.serviceapp.performValidations(serviceapp.java:392)
at service.serviceapp.performValidations(serviceapp.java:379)
at service.TransactionalServiceImpl.search(TransactionalServiceImpl.java:300)

Answer 1

Given that Bean Validation is part of the EE standard, I assume there is some code Bean Validation integration code which causes the problem. I see two potential solutions:
Patch the WL instance and upgrade to the Validator version you want to use
Try writing your own ValidationProvider. Internally it could just delegate to the Hibernate Validator classes. If you then add a validation.xml to your application, specifying your custom provider, WL should bootstrap this one. TBH, I don't know whether this will work. There are many unknowns and I don't know enough about the integration of WL and Bean Validation.
Personally, I think I would just try to upgrade the Validator version used in WL.