hive 0.13 msck repair table only lists partitions not in metastore

Question

I'm trying to use Hive(0.13) msck repair table command to recover partitions and it only lists the partitions not added to metastore instead of adding them to metastore as well.

here's the ouput of the command

partitions not in metastore externalexample:CreatedAt=26 04%3A50%3A56 UTC 2014/profileLocation="Chicago"

here's how I'm creating the external table

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ExternalExample(
        tweetId BIGINT, username STRING,
        txt STRING, CreatedAt STRING,
        profileLocation STRING,
        favc BIGINT,retweet STRING,retcount BIGINT,followerscount BIGINT)
    COMMENT 'This is the Twitter streaming data'
    ROW FORMAT DELIMITED
    FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\t'
    STORED AS TEXTFILE
    location '/user/hue/exttable/';

Am I missing something?

Answer 1

I had a similar issue with the MSCK REPAIR TABLE listing the partitions that were not in the metastore but not actually adding them (and no error message).

I tried manually adding the partition with the ALTER TABLE ADD PARTITION command, and this gave me an error message, leading me to the root cause which was that the HDFS folder containing the 'missing' partition had been set up with incorrect permissions.

Once the permissions issue was resolved, then the MSCK REPAIR TABLE command worked correctly.

If you encounter this issue, it may be worthwhile to try adding it manually with the ALTER TABLE ADD PARTITION command. It may produce a useful error message that would help you determine the root cause of the problem.