apache/iceberg · error · UnsupportedOperationException

Unknown catalog-type: %s (Must be 'hive', 'hadoop' or 'rest'

Error message

Unknown catalog-type: %s (Must be 'hive', 'hadoop' or 'rest')

What it means

Config validation in FlinkCatalogFactory.createCatalogLoader: the 'catalog-type' property (key iceberg.catalog.type, lowercased) is not one of the accepted values hive, hadoop, or rest. The %s is the offending value; the factory cannot decide which catalog loader to build, so it fails before any connection attempt.

Source

Thrown at flink/v2.2/flink/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/flink/FlinkCatalogFactory.java:119

    String catalogType = properties.getOrDefault(ICEBERG_CATALOG_TYPE, ICEBERG_CATALOG_TYPE_HIVE);
    switch (catalogType.toLowerCase(Locale.ROOT)) {
      case ICEBERG_CATALOG_TYPE_HIVE:
        // The values of properties 'uri', 'warehouse', 'hive-conf-dir' are allowed to be null, in
        // that case it will
        // fallback to parse those values from hadoop configuration which is loaded from classpath.
        String hiveConfDir = properties.get(HIVE_CONF_DIR);
        String hadoopConfDir = properties.get(HADOOP_CONF_DIR);
        Configuration newHadoopConf = mergeHiveConf(hadoopConf, hiveConfDir, hadoopConfDir);
        return CatalogLoader.hive(name, newHadoopConf, properties);

      case ICEBERG_CATALOG_TYPE_HADOOP:
        return CatalogLoader.hadoop(name, hadoopConf, properties);

      case ICEBERG_CATALOG_TYPE_REST:
        return CatalogLoader.rest(name, hadoopConf, properties);

      default:
        throw new UnsupportedOperationException(
            "Unknown catalog-type: " + catalogType + " (Must be 'hive', 'hadoop' or 'rest')");
    }
  }

  @Override
  public String factoryIdentifier() {
    return FACTORY_IDENTIFIER;
  }

  @Override
  public Set<ConfigOption<?>> requiredOptions() {
    return ImmutableSet.<ConfigOption<?>>builder().build();
  }

  @Override
  public Set<ConfigOption<?>> optionalOptions() {
    return ImmutableSet.<ConfigOption<?>>builder().build();
  }

View on GitHub (pinned to 86d9c8fc54)

Solutions

1. Set 'catalog-type' to one of 'hive', 'hadoop' or 'rest'
2. Check spelling/case of the catalog-type value
3. If you need jdbc/nessie catalogs, use a build/module that supports them or configure the REST catalog endpoint instead

Example fix

// before
WITH ('type'='iceberg', 'catalog-type'='jdbc', ...)
// after
WITH ('type'='iceberg', 'catalog-type'='rest', 'uri'='https://...')

String type = props.get("catalog-type");
if (!"hive".equals(type) && !"hadoop".equals(type) && !"rest".equals(type)) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException("catalog-type must be hive, hadoop or rest, got: " + type);
}

try { factory.createCatalogLoader(name, props, hadoopConf); } catch (UnsupportedOperationException e) { /* fix catalog-type option */ }

When it happens

Trigger: Creating a catalog via CREATE CATALOG ... WITH ('type'='iceberg', 'catalog-type'='jdbc'|'nessie'|typo) or FlinkCatalogFactory.createCatalogLoader with an unknown catalog-type option.

Common situations: Typos in catalog-type (e.g., 'Hive', 'hadooppro'), using catalog types not yet enabled in the Flink 2.2 Iceberg build (jdbc/nessie supported elsewhere but not here), or stale configs from other Iceberg versions.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

• Unknown catalog-type: %s (Must be 'hive', 'hadoop' or 'rest'
• Altering schema is not supported in the old alterTable API.
• Altering partition keys is not supported yet.
• Creating table with computed columns is not supported yet.
• Creating table with watermark specs is not supported yet.

AI-assisted analysis of apache/iceberg@86d9c8fc54 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cc9720f415fc37cb. Report an issue: GitHub.