All exceptions raised by a JDO implementation are runtime exceptions which means that you can choose to catch the exceptions or not. The reason for JDO using unchecked exceptions is that JDO tries to provide transparent persistence, and so needs to present the same interface and exceptions whatever the state an object has.

JDOException

This is the base class for all JDO exceptions. It is a subclass of RuntimeException, and need not be declared or caught.

Can Retry Exceptions

Exception	Description
JDOCanRetryException	This is the base class for errors that can be retried.
JDOUserException	This is the base class for user errors that can be retried.
JDODataStoreException	This is the base class for datastore errors that can be retried. Any root SQLException that caused this will typically be nested within this exception.
JDOObjectNotFoundException	This exception is to notify the application that an object does not exist in the datastore. When this exception is thrown during a transaction, there has been no change in the status of the transaction in progress. If this exception is a nested exception thrown during commit, then the transaction is rolled back.
JDOUnsupportedOptionException	This exception is thrown by an implementation to indicate that it does not implement a JDO optional feature.

Fatal Exceptions

Exception	Description
JDOFatalException	This is the base class for errors that cannot be retried. This exception generally means that the transaction associated with the PersistenceManager has been rolled back, and the transaction should be abandoned.
JDOFatalUserException	This is the base class for user errors that cannot be retried.
JDOFatalInternalException	This is the base class for JDO implementation failures.
JDOFatalDataStoreException	This is the base class for fatal datastore errors. When this exception is thrown, the transaction has been rolled back. Any root SQLException that caused this will typically be nested within this exception.
JDOOptimisticVerificationException	This exception is the result of a user commit operation in an optimistic transaction where the verification of new, modified, or deleted instances fails the verification. The user will never see this exception except as a result of commit.
JDODetachedFieldAccessException	This exception is the result of a user accessing a field of a detached instance, where the field was not copied to the detached instance.