What is Hive: Return Code 2 from org.apache.hadoop

Question

I am getting:

FAILED: Execution Error, return code 2 from org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.MapRedTask

While trying to make a copy of a partitioned table using the commands in the hive console:

CREATE TABLE copy_table_name LIKE table_name;
INSERT OVERWRITE TABLE copy_table_name PARTITION(day) SELECT * FROM table_name;

I initially got some semantic analysis errors and had to set:

set hive.exec.dynamic.partition=true
set hive.exec.dynamic.partition.mode=nonstrict

Although I'm not sure what the above properties do?

Full ouput from hive console:

Total MapReduce jobs = 1
Launching Job 1 out of 1
Number of reduce tasks determined at compile time: 1
In order to change the average load for a reducer (in bytes):
  set hive.exec.reducers.bytes.per.reducer=<number>
In order to limit the maximum number of reducers:
  set hive.exec.reducers.max=<number>
In order to set a constant number of reducers:
  set mapred.reduce.tasks=<number>
Starting Job = job_201206191101_4557, Tracking URL = http://jobtracker:50030/jobdetails.jsp?jobid=job_201206191101_4557
Kill Command = /usr/lib/hadoop/bin/hadoop job  -Dmapred.job.tracker=master:8021 -kill job_201206191101_4557
2012-06-25 09:53:05,826 Stage-1 map = 0%,  reduce = 0%
2012-06-25 09:53:53,044 Stage-1 map = 100%,  reduce = 100%
Ended Job = job_201206191101_4557 with errors
FAILED: Execution Error, return code 2 from org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.MapRedTask

Answer 1

Even I faced the same issue - when checked on dashboard I found following Error. As the data was coming through Flume and had interrupted in between due to which may be there was inconsistency in few files.

Caused by: org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.SerDeException: org.codehaus.jackson.JsonParseException: Unexpected end-of-input within/between OBJECT entries

Running on fewer files it worked. Format consistency was the reason in my case.