https://community.cloudera.com/t5/Support-Questions/Getting-error-while-opening-hive-shell/m-p/107940#M70795 <P><A rel="user" href="https://community.cloudera.com/users/3004/amitdass.html" nodeid="3004">@Amit Dass</A> Can you please check Hive Metastore logs for any errors/exceptions. Assuming you are using mysql as Metadata. Further Can you check if mysql is running and you can ping/telnet to mysql with the setting in the hive-site.xml and connect mysql with username/pwd provided in hive-site.xml</P> Wed, 20 Apr 2016 16:18:52 GMT nyakkanti 2016-04-20T16:18:52Z