Mac spark-shell Error initializing SparkContext

Question

I tried to start spark 1.6.0 (spark-1.6.0-bin-hadoop2.4) on Mac OS Yosemite 10.10.5 using

"./bin/spark-shell".
It has the error below. I also tried to install different versions of Spark but all have the same error. This is the second time I'm running Spark. My previous run works fine.

log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger (org.apache.hadoop.metrics2.lib.MutableMetricsFactory).
log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly.
log4j:WARN See http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/faq.html#noconfig for more info.
Using Spark's repl log4j profile: org/apache/spark/log4j-defaults-repl.properties
To adjust logging level use sc.setLogLevel("INFO")
Welcome to
      ____              __
     / __/__  ___ _____/ /__
    _\ \/ _ \/ _ `/ __/  '_/
   /___/ .__/\_,_/_/ /_/\_\   version 1.6.0
      /_/

Using Scala version 2.10.5 (Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM, Java 1.7.0_79)
Type in expressions to have them evaluated.
Type :help for more information.
16/01/04 13:49:40 WARN Utils: Service 'sparkDriver' could not bind on port 0. Attempting port 1.
16/01/04 13:49:40 WARN Utils: Service 'sparkDriver' could not bind on port 0. Attempting port 1.
16/01/04 13:49:40 WARN Utils: Service 'sparkDriver' could not bind on port 0. Attempting port 1.
16/01/04 13:49:40 WARN Utils: Service 'sparkDriver' could not bind on port 0. Attempting port 1.
16/01/04 13:49:40 WARN Utils: Service 'sparkDriver' could not bind on port 0. Attempting port 1.
16/01/04 13:49:40 WARN Utils: Service 'sparkDriver' could not bind on port 0. Attempting port 1.
……..

.

16/01/04 13:49:40 ERROR SparkContext: Error initializing SparkContext.
java.net.BindException: Can't assign requested address: Service 'sparkDriver' failed after 16 retries!
    at sun.nio.ch.Net.bind0(Native Method)
    at sun.nio.ch.Net.bind(Net.java:444)
    at sun.nio.ch.Net.bind(Net.java:436)
    at sun.nio.ch.ServerSocketChannelImpl.bind(ServerSocketChannelImpl.java:214)
    at sun.nio.ch.ServerSocketAdaptor.bind(ServerSocketAdaptor.java:74)
    at io.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioServerSocketChannel.doBind(NioServerSocketChannel.java:125)
    at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannel$AbstractUnsafe.bind(AbstractChannel.java:485)
    at io.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$HeadContext.bind(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:1089)
    at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeBind(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:430)
    at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.bind(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:415)
    at io.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.bind(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:903)
    at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannel.bind(AbstractChannel.java:198)
    at io.netty.bootstrap.AbstractBootstrap$2.run(AbstractBootstrap.java:348)
    at io.netty.util.concurrent.SingleThreadEventExecutor.runAllTasks(SingleThreadEventExecutor.java:357)
    at io.netty.channel.nio.NioEventLoop.run(NioEventLoop.java:357)
    at io.netty.util.concurrent.SingleThreadEventExecutor$2.run(SingleThreadEventExecutor.java:111)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
java.net.BindException: Can't assign requested address: Service 'sparkDriver' failed after 16 retries!
    at sun.nio.ch.Net.bind0(Native Method)
    at sun.nio.ch.Net.bind(Net.java:444)
    at sun.nio.ch.Net.bind(Net.java:436)
    at sun.nio.ch.ServerSocketChannelImpl.bind(ServerSocketChannelImpl.java:214)
    at sun.nio.ch.ServerSocketAdaptor.bind(ServerSocketAdaptor.java:74)
    at io.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioServerSocketChannel.doBind(NioServerSocketChannel.java:125)
    at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannel$AbstractUnsafe.bind(AbstractChannel.java:485)
    at io.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$HeadContext.bind(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:1089)
    at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeBind(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:430)
    at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.bind(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:415)
    at io.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.bind(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:903)
    at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannel.bind(AbstractChannel.java:198)
    at io.netty.bootstrap.AbstractBootstrap$2.run(AbstractBootstrap.java:348)
    at io.netty.util.concurrent.SingleThreadEventExecutor.runAllTasks(SingleThreadEventExecutor.java:357)
    at io.netty.channel.nio.NioEventLoop.run(NioEventLoop.java:357)
    at io.netty.util.concurrent.SingleThreadEventExecutor$2.run(SingleThreadEventExecutor.java:111)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.apache.spark.sql.SQLContext$.createListenerAndUI(SQLContext.scala:1367)
    at org.apache.spark.sql.hive.HiveContext.<init>(HiveContext.scala:101)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstr

………..

……...

Then I add

export SPARK_LOCAL_IP="127.0.0.1"

to spark-env.sh, error changes to:

 ERROR : No route to host
    java.net.ConnectException: No route to host
        at java.net.Inet6AddressImpl.isReachable0(Native Method)
        at java.net.Inet6AddressImpl.isReachable(Inet6AddressImpl.java:77)
        at java.net.InetAddress.isReachable(InetAddress.java:475)
...
<console>:10: error: not found: value sqlContext
       import sqlContext.implicits._
              ^
<console>:10: error: not found: value sqlContext
       import sqlContext.sql

Answer 1

We usually get this error when we do switching between networks.

Try this command and your error will be resolved:

$ sudo hostname -s 127.0.0.1

Another approach where you don't have to change the hostname of your Mac:

• Find the template file spark-env.sh.template on your machine (It is probably in /usr/local/Cellar/apache-spark/2.1.0/libexec/conf/).
• cp spark-env.sh.template spark-env.sh
• Add export SPARK_LOCAL_IP=127.0.0.1 under the comment for local IP.

Now, fire up the Spark-shell and it will work finely.

If you want to know more about Spark, then do check out this awesome video tutorial: