Create table succeeds but insert into fails in a hive external table based on hbase.

[#1]

PROBLEM:

For an external hive table created based on hbase, if there are any missing mappings or any other issues (Syntactical), create table statement is executed successfully. You can see the table is created. However, while trying to insert data in that table, following error is seen:

08S01: Error while processing statement: FAILED: Execution Error, return code 2 from org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.tez.TezTask. Vertex failed, vertexName=Map 1, vertexId=vertex_1495472057323_3947_1_00, Caused by: org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.metadata.HiveException: org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.SerDeException: java.lang.ClassCastException: org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.lazy.objectinspector.primitive.LazyStringObjectInspector cannot be cast to org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.objectinspector.MapObjectInspector 

at org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.FileSinkOperator.process(FileSinkOperator.java:800) 

at org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.Operator.forward(Operator.java:838) 

at org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.SelectOperator.process(SelectOperator.java:88) 

at org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.Operator.forward(Operator.java:838) 

at org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.TableScanOperator.process(TableScanOperator.java:133) 

at org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.MapOperator$MapOpCtx.forward(MapOperator.java:170) 

at org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.MapOperator.process(MapOperator.java:555)

ROOT CAUSE

Per: https://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/Hive/HBaseIntegration?action=diff&rev1=13&rev2=14

If there are any issues with the section:

WITH SERDEPROPERTIES ( "hbase.columns.mapping" = "cf1:val", "hbase.table.name" = "xyz" ); 

while creating the table, then the CREATE TABLE will succeed, but attempts to insert data will fail with this internal error:

{{{ java.lang.RuntimeException: org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.lazy.objectinspector.primitive.LazyStringObjectInspector cannot be cast to org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.objectinspector.MapObjectInspector }}} 

RESOLUTION

Create table should have clear definition of mappings to hbase table. Refer: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/Hive/HBaseIntegration