On the Hibernate site, they list as a known issue:

"If you are altering tables you should be in single user mode. This
can be achieved by running gfix -shut. It's also sufficient to have
only one database connection open (eg. immediately after starting the
application). If more than one connection is open, you will see
errors like "table is in use". To restart your database use gfix -
online."

I looked at 'gfix -shut' and I think what they are saying is that you
can shut down your database to see if there are other users using it?

But to address the problem itself, what does "you should be in single
user mode" mean? The paragraph above makes sense if only the admin
is altering tables on rare occasions, but I originally started
looking into this because the Hibernate *example code* makes 'alter
table' calls and it's failing.

And if do use Firebird in single user mode with Hibernate, does that
make Hibernate less useful in any way?

-Jeff