What causes "Error write zero-row file to Hive" in prestodb/presto?

Check filesystem health and permissions on the target partition directory; retry the failed query once the underlying IOException cause is resolved.

prestodb/presto · error · PrestoException

HIVE_WRITER_CLOSE_ERROR

HIVE_WRITER_CLOSE_ERROR

Error message

Error write zero-row file to Hive

What it means

HiveZeroRowFileCreator writes special zero-row marker files (empty files used to materialize empty partitions/directories). If the underlying DataSink throws an IOException while writing the wrapped buffer of the marker content, Presto wraps it in HIVE_WRITER_CLOSE_ERROR with this message. It signals the zero-row marker file could not be persisted to storage.

Source

Thrown at presto-hive/src/main/java/com/facebook/presto/hive/HiveZeroRowFileCreator.java:161

                deleteIfExists(tmpFilePath);
            }
            catch (IOException e) {
                log.error(e, "Error deleting temporary file: %s", tmpFilePath);
            }
        }
    }

    private void createFile(HdfsContext hdfsContext, Path path, byte[] content, ConnectorSession session)
    {
        try {
            FileSystem fs = hdfsEnvironment.getFileSystem(hdfsContext, path);
            try (DataSink dataSink = dataSinkFactory.createDataSink(session, fs, path)) {
                DataOutput dataOutput = createDataOutput(Slices.wrappedBuffer(content));
                dataSink.write(ImmutableList.of(dataOutput));
            }
        }
        catch (IOException e) {
            throw new PrestoException(HIVE_WRITER_CLOSE_ERROR, "Error write zero-row file to Hive", e);
        }
    }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 55bb57d202)

Solutions

Check filesystem health and permissions on the target partition directory; retry the failed query once the underlying IOException cause is resolved.
Verify HDFS is out of safe mode / S3 credentials and bucket policies allow writes.
Inspect the wrapped cause (the IOException is attached as the cause) for the root storage error.
If it happens on S3 frequently, tune retry/timeout settings of the S3 filesystem client.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Try / catch

try {
    query.execute();
} catch (PrestoException e) {
    if ("HIVE_WRITER_CLOSE_ERROR".equals(e.getErrorCode().getName()) && isTransient(e.getCause())) {
        retry(query, maxAttempts = 3, backoff = exponential());
    } else {
        throw e;
    }
}

Prevention

Ensure target partition directories are writable by the Presto service account.
Monitor HDFS safe mode and S3 error rates; avoid commits during storage instability.
Keep HDFS/S3 client retry policies enabled with sane timeouts.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling HiveZeroRowFileCreator.createFile when dataSinkFactory.createDataSink succeeds but dataSink.write(...) or the sink close (try-with-resources) throws IOException — e.g. filesystem errors while flushing the small marker payload.

Common situations: HDFS/S3 transient write failures, missing write permissions on the target directory, quota exceeded, HDFS safe mode, or S3 throttling when creating empty partition marker files during a commit phase.

Understand the failure class

Background: "failed to write file", "Could not save figure", "Error saving remote file" — file write failed: causes and fixes across languages and libraries — this error's family across 38 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of prestodb/presto@55bb57d202 (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c79578814d63a63a. Report an issue: GitHub.