apache/iceberg · error · NoSuchNamespaceException

invalid input for namespace %s, error message: %s

Error message

invalid input for namespace %s, error message: %s

What it means

GlueCatalog.loadNamespaceMetadata catches Glue's InvalidInputException while calling GetDatabase and rethrows it as NoSuchNamespaceException with the AWS error message appended. Glue returns InvalidInputException when the database name is malformed or fails Glue's name validation rules (length, allowed characters), so the namespace identifier passed to Iceberg is not a valid Glue database name.

Source

Thrown at aws/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/aws/glue/GlueCatalog.java:546

                      .name(databaseName)
                      .build())
              .database();
      Map<String, String> result = Maps.newHashMap(database.parameters());

      if (database.locationUri() != null) {
        result.put(
            IcebergToGlueConverter.GLUE_DB_LOCATION_KEY,
            LocationUtil.stripTrailingSlash(database.locationUri()));
      }

      if (database.description() != null) {
        result.put(IcebergToGlueConverter.GLUE_DESCRIPTION_KEY, database.description());
      }

      LOG.debug("Loaded metadata for namespace {} found {}", namespace, result);
      return result;
    } catch (InvalidInputException e) {
      throw new NoSuchNamespaceException(
          "invalid input for namespace %s, error message: %s", namespace, e.getMessage());
    } catch (EntityNotFoundException e) {
      throw new NoSuchNamespaceException(
          "fail to find Glue database for namespace %s, error message: %s",
          databaseName, e.getMessage());
    }
  }

  @Override
  public boolean dropNamespace(Namespace namespace) throws NamespaceNotEmptyException {
    namespaceExists(namespace);

    GetTablesResponse response =
        glue.getTables(
            GetTablesRequest.builder()
                .catalogId(awsProperties.glueCatalogId())
                .databaseName(
                    IcebergToGlueConverter.toDatabaseName(

View on GitHub (pinned to 86d9c8fc54)

Solutions

1. Validate the namespace against Glue database naming rules (lowercase letters, numbers, underscore; max length) before calling the catalog.
2. Strip or normalize illegal characters in the namespace string before use.
3. Ensure the Namespace has exactly one level; flatten hierarchical names.
4. Read the AWS error message in the exception — it names the exact validation Glue rejected.

Example fix

// before
catalog.loadNamespaceMetadata(Namespace.of("My Schema!"));

// after
String db = "My Schema!".trim().toLowerCase(Locale.ROOT).replaceAll("[^a-z0-9_]", "_");
catalog.loadNamespaceMetadata(Namespace.of(db));

String name = ns.level(0);
if (!name.matches("^[a-z0-9_]{1,255}$")) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid Glue database name: " + name);
}

try {
  return catalog.loadNamespaceMetadata(ns);
} catch (NoSuchNamespaceException e) {
  LOG.error("Invalid or missing namespace {}: {}", ns, e.getMessage());
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling catalog.loadNamespaceMetadata(ns) where the namespace contains characters Glue disallows (special characters, too long, empty segments); passing a multi-level namespace when Glue expects one level; names created by engines with looser validation rules.

Common situations: Namespaces copied from other catalogs (Hive/Hadoop) with unsupported characters; programmatic namespace generation producing invalid identifiers; typos such as trailing dots or whitespace in configuration.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

• Cannot create namespace %s because it already exists in Glue
• Glue does not support nested namespace, cannot list namespac
• fail to find Glue database for namespace %s, error message:
• Cannot drop namespace %s because it still contains Iceberg t
• Cannot drop namespace %s because it still contains non-Icebe

AI-assisted analysis of apache/iceberg@86d9c8fc54 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/995785bb524e5743. Report an issue: GitHub.