Hive installation issues: Hive metastore database is not initialized

After installing hive, if the first thing you did was run hive, hive attempted to create/initialize the metastore_db, but apparently might not get it right. On that initial run, maybe you saw your error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: Hive metastore database is not initialized. Please use schematool (e.g. ./schematool -initSchema -dbType ...) to create the schema. If needed, don't forget to include the option to auto-create the underlying database in your JDBC connection string (e.g. ?createDatabaseIfNotExist=true for mysql)

Running hive, even though it fails, creates a metastore_db directory in the directory from which you ran hive:

ubuntu15-laptop: ~ $>ls -l |grep metadrwxrwxr-x 5 testuser testuser 4096 Apr 14 12:44 metastore_db

So when you then tried running

ubuntu15-laptop: ~ $>schematool -initSchema -dbType derby

The metastore already existed, but not in complete form.

Soooooo the answer is:

1. Before you run hive for the first time, run

   schematool -initSchema -dbType derby

2. If you already ran hive and then tried to initSchema and it's failing:

   mv metastore_db metastore_db.tmp

3. Re run

   schematool -initSchema -dbType derby

4. Run hive again

**Also of note: if you change directories, the metastore_db created above won't be found! I'm sure there's a good reason for this that I don't know yet because I'm literally trying to use hive for the first time today. Ahhh here's information on this: metastore_db created wherever I run Hive

I installed hive with HomeBrew(MacOS) at /usr/local/Cellar/hive and afer runningschematool -dbType derby -initSchema I get the following error message:

Starting metastore schema initialization to 2.0.0Initialization script hive-schema-2.0.0.derby.sqlError: FUNCTION 'NUCLEUS_ASCII' already exists. (state=X0Y68,code=30000)org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.HiveMetaException: Schema initialization FAILED! Metastore state would be inconsistent !!

However, I can't find either metastore_db or metastore_db.tmp folder under install path, so I tried:

1. find /usr/ -name hive-schema-2.0.0.derby.sql
2. vi /usr/local/Cellar/hive/2.0.1/libexec/scripts/metastore/upgrade/derby/hive-schema-2.0.0.derby.sql
3. comment the 'NUCLEUS_ASCII' function and 'NUCLEUS_MATCHES' function
4. rerun schematool -dbType derby -initSchema, then everything goes well!

hope this help someone.

I encountered a similar issue, which I fixed by removing the derby database files rm -Rf $HIVE_HOME/metastore_db

Be aware, this will remove your schema completely!

After cleaning the old schema I could reinitialize with:

$HIVE_HOME/bin/schematool -initSchema -dbType derby

It might differ from where you call hive, try to go to your hive installation directory and run ./bin/hive