pyspark.sql.utils.IllegalArgumentException: u”Error while instantiating ‘org.apache.spark.sql.hive.HiveSessionState’:”

If you encounter this error after launching the pyspark prompt, this solution might work for you.

Change the permissions of the /tmp/hive directory as follows.

sudo chmod -R 777 /tmp/hive

Launch pyspark. If pyspark is added to your path, you can do

pyspark

or

./bin/pyspark

from the spark directory.