Pyspark Error: "Py4JJavaError: An error occurred while calling o655.count." when calling count() method on dataframe

Question

I'm new to Spark and I'm using Pyspark 2.3.1 to read in a csv file into a dataframe. I'm able to read in the file and print values in a Jupyter notebook running within an anaconda environment. This is the code I'm using:

# Start session
spark = SparkSession \
.builder \
.appName("Embedding Models") \
.config('spark.ui.showConsoleProgress', 'true') \
.config("spark.master", "local[2]") \
.getOrCreate()

sqlContext = sql.SQLContext(spark)
schema = StructType([
         StructField("Index", IntegerType(), True),
         StructField("title", StringType(), True),
         StructField("body", StringType(), True)])

df= sqlContext.read.csv("../data/faq_data.csv",
                         header=True, 
                         mode="DROPMALFORMED",
                         schema=schema)

Output:

df.show()

+-----+--------------------+--------------------+
|Index|               title|                body|
+-----+--------------------+--------------------+
|    0|What does “quantu...|Quantum theory is...|
|    1|What is a quantum...|A quantum compute...|

However when I call the .count() method on the dataframe it throws the below error

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Py4JJavaError                             Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-29-913a2f9eb5fc> in <module>()
----> 1 df.count()

~/anaconda3/envs/Community/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pyspark/sql/dataframe.py in count(self)
    453         2
    454         """
--> 455         return int(self._jdf.count())
    456 
    457     @ignore_unicode_prefix

~/anaconda3/envs/Community/lib/python3.6/site-packages/py4j/java_gateway.py in __call__(self, *args)
   1255         answer = self.gateway_client.send_command(command)
   1256         return_value = get_return_value(
-> 1257             answer, self.gateway_client, self.target_id, self.name)
   1258 
   1259         for temp_arg in temp_args:

~/anaconda3/envs/Community/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pyspark/sql/utils.py in deco(*a, **kw)
     61     def deco(*a, **kw):
     62         try:
---> 63             return f(*a, **kw)
     64         except py4j.protocol.Py4JJavaError as e:
     65             s = e.java_exception.toString()

~/anaconda3/envs/Community/lib/python3.6/site-packages/py4j/protocol.py in get_return_value(answer, gateway_client, target_id, name)
    326                 raise Py4JJavaError(
    327                     "An error occurred while calling {0}{1}{2}.\n".
--> 328                     format(target_id, ".", name), value)
    329             else:
    330                 raise Py4JError(

Py4JJavaError: An error occurred while calling o655.count.
: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
    at org.apache.xbean.asm5.ClassReader.<init>(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xbean.asm5.ClassReader.<init>(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xbean.asm5.ClassReader.<init>(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.spark.util.ClosureCleaner$.getClassReader(ClosureCleaner.scala:46)
    at org.apache.spark.util.FieldAccessFinder$$anon$3$$anonfun$visitMethodInsn$2.apply(ClosureCleaner.scala:449)
    at org.apache.spark.util.FieldAccessFinder$$anon$3$$anonfun$visitMethodInsn$2.apply(ClosureCleaner.scala:432)
    at scala.collection.TraversableLike$WithFilter$$anonfun$foreach$1.apply(TraversableLike.scala:733)
    at scala.collection.mutable.HashMap$$anon$1$$anonfun$foreach$2.apply(HashMap.scala:103)
    at scala.collection.mutable.HashMap$$anon$1$$anonfun$foreach$2.apply(HashMap.scala:103)
    at scala.collection.mutable.HashTable$class.foreachEntry(HashTable.scala:230)
    at scala.collection.mutable.HashMap.foreachEntry(HashMap.scala:40)
    at scala.collection.mutable.HashMap$$anon$1.foreach(HashMap.scala:103)
    at scala.collection.TraversableLike$WithFilter.foreach(TraversableLike.scala:732)
    at org.apache.spark.util.FieldAccessFinder$$anon$3.visitMethodInsn(ClosureCleaner.scala:432)
    at org.apache.xbean.asm5.ClassReader.a(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xbean.asm5.ClassReader.b(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xbean.asm5.ClassReader.accept(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xbean.asm5.ClassReader.accept(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.spark.util.ClosureCleaner$$anonfun$org$apache$spark$util$ClosureCleaner$$clean$14.apply(ClosureCleaner.scala:262)
    at org.apache.spark.util.ClosureCleaner$$anonfun$org$apache$spark$util$ClosureCleaner$$clean$14.apply(ClosureCleaner.scala:261)
    at scala.collection.immutable.List.foreach(List.scala:381)
    at org.apache.spark.util.ClosureCleaner$.org$apache$spark$util$ClosureCleaner$$clean(ClosureCleaner.scala:261)
    at org.apache.spark.util.ClosureCleaner$.clean(ClosureCleaner.scala:159)
    at org.apache.spark.SparkContext.clean(SparkContext.scala:2299)
    at org.apache.spark.SparkContext.runJob(SparkContext.scala:2073)
    at org.apache.spark.SparkContext.runJob(SparkContext.scala:2099)
    at org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD$$anonfun$collect$1.apply(RDD.scala:939)
    at org.apache.spark.rdd.RDDOperationScope$.withScope(RDDOperationScope.scala:151)
    at org.apache.spark.rdd.RDDOperationScope$.withScope(RDDOperationScope.scala:112)
    at org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD.withScope(RDD.scala:363)
    at org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD.collect(RDD.scala:938)
    at org.apache.spark.sql.execution.SparkPlan.executeCollect(SparkPlan.scala:297)
    at org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset$$anonfun$count$1.apply(Dataset.scala:2770)
    at org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset$$anonfun$count$1.apply(Dataset.scala:2769)
    at org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset$$anonfun$52.apply(Dataset.scala:3254)
    at org.apache.spark.sql.execution.SQLExecution$.withNewExecutionId(SQLExecution.scala:77)
    at org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset.withAction(Dataset.scala:3253)
    at org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset.count(Dataset.scala:2769)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:564)
    at py4j.reflection.MethodInvoker.invoke(MethodInvoker.java:244)
    at py4j.reflection.ReflectionEngine.invoke(ReflectionEngine.java:357)
    at py4j.Gateway.invoke(Gateway.java:282)
    at py4j.commands.AbstractCommand.invokeMethod(AbstractCommand.java:132)
    at py4j.commands.CallCommand.execute(CallCommand.java:79)
    at py4j.GatewayConnection.run(GatewayConnection.java:238)
    at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:844)

I'm using Python 3.6.5 if that makes a difference.

Answer 1

What Java version do you have on your machine? Your problem is probably related to Java 9.

If you download Java 8, the exception will disappear. If you already have Java 8 installed, just change JAVA_HOME to it.

Answer 2

In Linux installing Java 8 as the following will help:

sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk

Then set the default Java to version 8 using:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

***************** : 2 (Enter 2, when it asks you to choose) + Press Enter