How to fix the Hibernate "object references an unsaved transient instance - save the transient instance before flushing" error

You should include cascade="all" (if using xml) or cascade=CascadeType.ALL (if using annotations) on your collection mapping.

This happens because you have a collection in your entity, and that collection has one or more items which are not present in the database. By specifying the above options you tell hibernate to save them to the database when saving their parent.

I believe this might be just repeat answer, but just to clarify, I got this on a @OneToOne mapping as well as a @OneToMany. In both cases, it was the fact that the Child object I was adding to the Parent wasn't saved in the database yet. So when I added the Child to the Parent, then saved the Parent, Hibernate would toss the "object references an unsaved transient instance - save the transient instance before flushing" message when saving the Parent.

Adding in the cascade = {CascadeType.ALL} on the Parent's reference to the Child solved the problem in both cases. This saved the Child and the Parent.

Sorry for any repeat answers, just wanted to further clarify for folks.

@OneToOne(cascade = {CascadeType.ALL})
@JoinColumn(name = "performancelog_id")
public PerformanceLog getPerformanceLog() {
    return performanceLog;
}