JPA exception: Object: ... is not a known entity type

I'm new to JPA and I'm having problems with the autogeneration of primary key values.

I have the following entity:

package jpatest.entities;

import java.io.Serializable;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import javax.persistence.GenerationType;
import javax.persistence.Id;

@Entity
public class MyEntity implements Serializable {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
    private Long id;

    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

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

    private String someProperty;

    public String getSomeProperty() {
        return someProperty;
    }

    public void setSomeProperty(String someProperty) {
        this.someProperty = someProperty;
    }

    public MyEntity() {
    }

    public MyEntity(String someProperty) {
        this.someProperty = someProperty;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "jpatest.entities.MyEntity[id=" + id + "]";
    }    
}

and the following main method in other class:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("JPATestPU");
    EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();

    em.getTransaction().begin();

    MyEntity e = new MyEntity("some value");    
    em.persist(e); /* (exception thrown here) */

    em.getTransaction().commit();

    em.close();
    emf.close();
}

This is my persistence unit:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<persistence version="1.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd">
  <persistence-unit name="JPATestPU" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
    <provider>oracle.toplink.essentials.PersistenceProvider</provider>
    <class>jpatest.entities.MyEntity</class>
    <properties>
      <property name="toplink.jdbc.user" value="..."/>
      <property name="toplink.jdbc.password" value="..."/>
      <property name="toplink.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/jpatest"/>
      <property name="toplink.jdbc.driver" value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"/>
      <property name="toplink.ddl-generation" value="create-tables"/>
    </properties>
  </persistence-unit>
</persistence>

When I execute the program I get the following exception in the line marked with the proper comment:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Object: jpatest.entities.MyEntity[id=null] is not a known entity type.
        at oracle.toplink.essentials.internal.sessions.UnitOfWorkImpl.registerNewObjectForPersist(UnitOfWorkImpl.java:3212)
        at oracle.toplink.essentials.internal.ejb.cmp3.base.EntityManagerImpl.persist(EntityManagerImpl.java:205)
        at jpatest.Main.main(Main.java:...)

What am I missing?

TopLink used to require you to explicitly set GenerationType.IDENTITY for MySQL, so change this and drop the database. Then try running your sample again. Further you might also want to explcitly set the database platform:

 <property name="toplink.platform.class.name" 
                    value="oracle.toplink.platform.database.MySQL4Platform"/>

Also I vaguely remember that you have to run Toplink using its Java agent in order to make it function properly with a resource local entitymanager.

I did however successfully run your example using EclipseLink (which you should use since Toplink is outdated). Only cavat was that I did not have MySQL server handy, so I ran it using H2. I used the following Maven pom.xml to resolve the dependencies:

 <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>org.randompage</groupId>
    <artifactId>sandbox</artifactId>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>
    <version>1.0</version>
    <name>sandbox</name>
    <repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>EclipseLink Repo</id>
            <url>http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?r=1&amp;nf=1&amp;file=/rt/eclipselink/maven.repo</url>
        </repository>
    </repositories>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.persistence</artifactId>
            <version>2.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.eclipse.persistence</groupId>
            <artifactId>eclipselink</artifactId>
            <version>2.0.0</version>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
            <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
            <version>1.2.130</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>

and this persistence.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<persistence version="2.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"
             xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
             xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd">
    <persistence-unit name="JPATestPU" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
        <provider>
            org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider
        </provider>
        <class>org.randompage.MyEntity</class>
        <properties>
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.user" value="johndoe"/>
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.password" value="secret"/>
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" value="org.h2.Driver"/>
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:h2:~/.h2/testdb;FILE_LOCK=NO"/>
            <property name="eclipselink.ddl-generation" value="create-tables"/>
            <property name="eclipselink.logging.level" value="INFO"/>
        </properties>
    </persistence-unit>
</persistence>

With these settings your code ran as expected.