R – Does Hibernate 2nd-Level cache invalidate when running a JPQL update statement

The problem is that Hibernate doesn't actually do the delete. The database does that as part of a foreign key relationship, so Hibernate never sees all the objects that may get deleted and therefore, there is no way to update the cache that works in every case.

I think your best bet is to flush the cache (or part of it) when you delete.

Based on ChssPly76's comments here's a method that evicts all entities from 2nd level cache (we can expose this method to admins through JMX or other admin tools):

/**
 * Evicts all second level cache hibernate entites. This is generally only
 * needed when an external application modifies the game databaase.
 */
public void evict2ndLevelCache() {
    try {
        Map<String, ClassMetadata> classesMetadata = sessionFactory.getAllClassMetadata();
        for (String entityName : classesMetadata.keySet()) {
            logger.info("Evicting Entity from 2nd level cache: " + entityName);
            sessionFactory.evictEntity(entityName);
        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        logger.logp(Level.SEVERE, "SessionController", "evict2ndLevelCache", "Error evicting 2nd level hibernate cache entities: ", e);
    }
}