I got some trouble loading a list of objects from my database using Hibernate and lazy=true mode.
Hope that someone can help me out here.

I have a simple class here called UserAccount which looks like this:

```
public class UserAccount {
    long id;
    String username;
    List<MailAccount> mailAccounts = new Vector<MailAccount>();

    public UserAccount(){
        super();
    }

    public long getId(){
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(long id){
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getUsername(){
        return username;
    }

    public void setUsername(String username){
        this.username = username;
    }

    public List<MailAccount> getMailAccounts() {
        if (mailAccounts == null) {
            mailAccounts = new Vector<MailAccount>();
        }
        return mailAccounts;
    }

    public void setMailAccounts(List<MailAccount> mailAccounts) {
        this.mailAccounts = mailAccounts;
    }
}

```

I am mapping this class in Hibernate via the following mapping file:

```
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-mapping>
    <class name="test.account.UserAccount" table="USERACCOUNT">

        <id name="id" type="long" access="field">
            <column name="USER_ACCOUNT_ID" />
            <generator class="native" />
        </id>

        <property name="username" />

        <bag name="mailAccounts" table="MAILACCOUNTS" lazy="true" inverse="true" cascade="all">
            <key column="USER_ACCOUNT_ID"></key>
            <one-to-many class="test.account.MailAccount" />
        </bag>

    </class>
</hibernate-mapping>

```

As you can see, lazy is set to "true" in the bag mapping element.

Saving the data to the database works fine:

Loading also works by calling `loadUserAccount(String username)` (see code below):

```
public class HibernateController implements DatabaseController {
    private Session                 session         = null;
    private final SessionFactory    sessionFactory  = buildSessionFactory();

    public HibernateController() {
        super();
    }

    private SessionFactory buildSessionFactory() {
        try {
            return new Configuration().configure().buildSessionFactory();
        } catch (Throwable ex) {
            System.err.println("Initial SessionFactory creation failed." + ex);
            throw new ExceptionInInitializerError(ex);
        }
    }

    public UserAccount loadUserAccount(String username) throws FailedDatabaseOperationException {
        UserAccount account = null;
        Session session = null;
        Transaction transaction = null;
        try {
            session = getSession();
            transaction = session.beginTransaction();
            Query query = session.createQuery("FROM UserAccount WHERE username = :uname").setParameter("uname", username));
            account = (UserAccount) query.uniqueResult();
            transaction.commit();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            transaction.rollback();
            throw new FailedDatabaseOperationException(e);
        } finally {
            if (session.isOpen()) {
                // session.close();
            }
        }

        return account;
    }

    private Session getSession() {
        if (session == null){
            session = getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession();
        }
        return session;
    }
}

```

The problem is just: When I access elements within the list "mailAccounts", I get the following exception:

> 
> org.hibernate.LazyInitializationException:
>  failed to lazily initialize a
>  collection of role:
>  test.account.UserAccount.mailAccounts,
>  no session or session was closed
> 
> 
> 

I assume the reason for this exception is that the session got closed (don't know why and how) and thus Hibernate cannot load the list.
As you can see, I even removed the `session.close()` call from the `loadUserAccount()` method but the session still seems to be either get closed or replaced by another instance.
If I set `lazy=false`, then everything works smoothly but this is not what I wanted because I need the feature of loading data "on demand" due to performance issues.

So, if I can't be sure that my session is still valid after the method `loadUserAccount(String username)` terminated, what's the point of having that feature and how do I work around that?

Thanks for your help!

Ps: I am a Hibernate beginner so please excuse my noobishness.

**Update:** Here is my hibernate config.cfg.xml

```
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
        "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN"
        "http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-configuration>
    <session-factory>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class">com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.password">foo</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mytable</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.username">user</property>
        <property name="hibernate.dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect</property>

        <!-- Auto create tables -->
<!--        <property name="hbm2ddl.auto">create</property>-->

        <!-- Enable Hibernate's automatic session context management -->
        <property name="current_session_context_class">thread</property>

        <!-- Mappings -->
        <mapping resource="test/account/SmampiAccount.hbm.xml"/>
        <mapping resource="test/account/MailAccount.hbm.xml"/>
    </session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>

```