I've figured out part of my problem (at least I have a workaround): My entity contains three Date fields. If those fields are not given an explicit value (something other than null), then the ejbCreate fails. Here is a partial stack trace: Nested exception is: java.sql.SQLException: [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] SQL data type out of range at sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbc.createSQLException(JdbcOdbc.java:4089) at sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbc.standardError(JdbcOdbc.java:4246) at sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbc.SQLBindInParameterNull(JdbcOdbc.java:444) at sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcPreparedStatement.setNull(JdbcOdbcPreparedStatement.ja va:303) at com.evermind.sql.am.setNull(JAX, Compiled Code) at com.evermind.sql.am.setNull(JAX, Compiled Code) at ContentHome_EntityHomeWrapper23.create(ContentHome_EntityHomeWrapper23.java, Compiled Code) Something in the system can't handle null dates, even though the table itself can handle null dates. I guess I could try a different JDBC driver and see if there are different results, but if I give values to the dates in ejbCreate, all goes well. Kurt in Seattle