Hue Load Database failed after switch to external MySQL

[#1]

The history for this issue:

Installed CDH4 1.5 years ago. Used MySQL for all metadata except for Hue users (a simple oversight).

Switched to CDH5 in September 2015. Still using SQLite for Hue.

Upgraded to CDH5.5.8 last Thursday. Still using SQLite for Hue.

I finally decided to convert Hue to use MySQL instead of the default SQLite. I succeeded in 'Save Database' to the Json file, after some trouble with permissions succeeded in 'Synchronize Database'. Now, 'Load Database' fails.

The json database in question has 1.5 years' worth of present and former users. It is 3 million lines long! Should I expect this to load at all?

To recap: exported a giant Hue history json-blob under CDH 5.5.8, switched to MySQL, it won't load back.

[#2]

It is probably going to take forever.

We recommend to truncate the histories tables:
http://gethue.com/how-to-manage-the-hue-database-with-the-shell/
http://www.cloudera.com/content/www/en-us/documentation/enterprise/latest/topics/cdh_ig_hue_database...

In practice exporting documents like
http://gethue.com/exporting-and-importing-oozie-workflows/
might be simpler.

It is planned to make everything exportable in the UI like above:
https://issues.cloudera.org/browse/HUE-3089

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your candor 🙂

In my use case, it would be handy to unload and reload everything for a particular user. Most of our user history was inactive users, and only a few wanted their queries back.