What causes "No such table: %s.%s" in apache/iceberg?

Re-check the table existence in HMS; recreate it if the drop was unintended.

apache/iceberg · error · NoSuchTableException

No such table: .

Error message

No such table: %s.%s

What it means

HiveTableOperations.doRefresh throws NoSuchTableException when the Hive metastore reports NoSuchObjectException during refresh, but this operations object already holds a metadata location (i.e., the table existed earlier and now vanished). It signals the table was dropped concurrently or between operations.

Solutions

Re-check the table existence in HMS; recreate it if the drop was unintended.
Retry the catalog operation after confirming the table was recreated (fresh loadTable).
Coordinate drop operations with readers/writers (locks or job orchestration) to avoid concurrent removal.

Example fix

// before
Table t = catalog.loadTable(ident); ... long job ...; t.refresh(); // table dropped meanwhile -> NoSuchTableException
// after
if (catalog.tableExists(ident)) { t = catalog.loadTable(ident); } else { /* recreate or abort */ }

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

if (!catalog.tableExists(ident)) { throw new NoSuchTableException("Table dropped: " + ident); } // check before long jobs

Try / catch

try { table.refresh(); } catch (NoSuchTableException e) { if (catalog.tableExists(ident)) { table = catalog.loadTable(ident); table.refresh(); } else { /* recreate or abort */ } }

Prevention

Coordinate drops with active readers/writers.
Re-verify existence after long-running stages.
Use drop-and-recreate pipelines that publish atomically.

When it happens

Trigger: Refreshing (loadTable → any scan/commit path triggering doRefresh) while another process drops the HMS table; HMS get_table returning NoSuchObjectException with currentMetadataLocation() != null.

Common situations: Concurrent drop-and-recreate pipelines; a different job dropping the table mid-read; cluster tools (e.g. drop cascades) removing the table during a long-running job.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of apache/iceberg@86d9c8fc54 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e5df3a7825c25349. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at hive-metastore/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/hive/HiveTableOperations.java:193

    try {
      Table table = metaClients.run(client -> client.getTable(database, tableName));

      // Check if we are trying to load an Iceberg View as a Table
      HiveOperationsBase.validateIcebergViewNotLoadedAsIcebergTable(table, fullName);
      // Check if it is a valid Iceberg Table
      HiveOperationsBase.validateTableIsIceberg(table, fullName);

      metadataLocation = table.getParameters().get(METADATA_LOCATION_PROP);
      /* Table key ID must be retrieved from a catalog service, and not from untrusted storage
      (e.g. metadata json file) that can be tampered with. For example, an attacker can remove
      the table key parameter (along with existing snapshots) in the file, making the writers
      produce unencrypted files. Table key ID is taken directly from HMS catalog */
      tableKeyIdFromHMS = table.getParameters().get(TableProperties.ENCRYPTION_TABLE_KEY);
      dekLengthFromHMS = table.getParameters().get(TableProperties.ENCRYPTION_DEK_LENGTH);
      metadataHashFromHMS = table.getParameters().get(METADATA_HASH_PROP);
    } catch (NoSuchObjectException e) {
      if (currentMetadataLocation() != null) {
        throw new NoSuchTableException("No such table: %s.%s", database, tableName);
      }

    } catch (TException e) {
      String errMsg =
          String.format("Failed to get table info from metastore %s.%s", database, tableName);
      throw new RuntimeException(errMsg, e);

    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
      Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
      throw new RuntimeException("Interrupted during refresh", e);
    }

    refreshFromMetadataLocation(metadataLocation, metadataRefreshMaxRetries);

    if (tableKeyIdFromHMS != null) {
      checkIntegrityForEncryption(tableKeyIdFromHMS, dekLengthFromHMS, metadataHashFromHMS);

      tableKeyId = tableKeyIdFromHMS;

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