apache/hadoop · error · FileNotFoundException

No such file: ${jsonFile}

Error message

No such file: ${jsonFile}

What it means

JsonSerialization.load(File) validates the path before parsing: when File.exists() is false it throws FileNotFoundException("No such file: <path>"). The explicit pre-check distinguishes a missing file from a JSON parse failure and reports the exact path the JVM saw.

Source

Thrown at hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/JsonSerialization.java:178

   * @throws JsonMappingException failure to map from the JSON to this class
   */
  public synchronized T fromJsonStream(InputStream stream) throws IOException {
    return mapper.readValue(stream, classType);
  }

  /**
   * Load from a JSON text file.
   * @param jsonFile input file
   * @return the parsed JSON
   * @throws IOException IO problems
   * @throws JsonParseException If the input is not well-formatted
   * @throws JsonMappingException failure to map from the JSON to this class
   */
  @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
  public synchronized T load(File jsonFile)
      throws IOException, JsonParseException, JsonMappingException {
    if (!jsonFile.exists()) {
      throw new FileNotFoundException("No such file: " + jsonFile);
    }
    if (!jsonFile.isFile()) {
      throw new FileNotFoundException("Not a file: " + jsonFile);
    }
    if (jsonFile.length() == 0) {
      throw new EOFException("File is empty: " + jsonFile);
    }
    try {
      return mapper.readValue(jsonFile, classType);
    } catch (IOException e) {
      LOG.warn("Exception while parsing json file {}", jsonFile, e);
      throw e;
    }
  }

  /**
   * Save to a local file. Any existing file is overwritten unless
   * the OS blocks that.

View on GitHub (pinned to 2add963021)

Solutions

1. Log file.getAbsolutePath() and compare it with the real location of the file.
2. Use an absolute path or resolve against an explicitly configured base directory.
3. If absence is legitimate (first run), check exists() first and initialize defaults instead of loading.

Example fix

// before
File f = new File("state/nodes.json");
MyType t = serializer.load(f);

// after
File f = new File(conf.get("app.state.dir"), "nodes.json"); // absolute base from config
if (!f.exists()) {
  return defaults();
}
return serializer.load(f);

File f = new File(baseDir, name);
if (!f.exists()) {
  return defaults(); // or throw a domain exception naming the config key
}
return serializer.load(f);

catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
  // load() throws this only from its exists()/isFile() guards, before parsing
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling load(new File(p)) where p does not exist on the filesystem the process sees: a relative path resolved against the wrong working directory, a typo, or a file that was never written.

Common situations: Daemon started from a different working directory so a relative state-file path resolves elsewhere; fresh cluster where the state file was never created; path assembled by string concatenation with a missing '/' separator.

Understand the failure class

Background: "File not found" and ENOENT errors: why libraries can't find a file that should exist — this error's family across 50 libraries.

Related errors

• Not a file: ${jsonFile}
• File is empty: ${jsonFile}
• Errors on getting mount table loader class. The fs.viewfs.mo
• %s=null: %s: %s
• Codec not configured for custom codec {}

AI-assisted analysis of apache/hadoop@2add963021 (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/35d129c791265792. Report an issue: GitHub.