Hello.
I realized, that there is a bug in the current jbpm.varmapping.properties:
The entry {serializable-classes} stands before the entry {hibernateable-long-id-classes}. By this, any hibernatable instance that should be saved to the context will be serialized, instead of using the general approach of hibernate of just storing the id.
Solution:
Just move the entry with {serializable-classes} to the end of the file.
could you file a Jira issue for this?