@ssattiraju thanks that actually works and I could re-run my program multiple times without modifying/re-starting my interpreter. The reason i had stop() is to make sure there is no idle sparkContext and we faced some issues previously where a sparkContext that was initiated would not be terminated and they would be left open too long. So in this scenario whenever we run any program, the program goes into pending state. Our Admins proposed to use close() to close the context after the successful execution of the program. Now my question is if we again encounter a problem where a sparkContext that has been opened and left frozen (not terminated properly). How are we supposed to handle this scenario? I have attached the snapshot of the program that runs into pending state for your reference.pending.jpg ... View more