topic Re: Unable to use Auto Loader for External Location in Community Edition in Data Engineering

Unable to use Auto Loader for External Location in Community Edition

AanchalSoni — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:11:22 GMT

Using Community Edition

I'm trying to create a pipeline(streaming) using auto loader (accessing external location) and each time my select query is thrown this error- " An error occurred while calling t.analyzeAndFormatResult. : java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: Public DBFS root is disabled. Access is denied on path: /local_disk0/tmp/autoloader_schemas_DLTAnalysisID-ec51b16e-3b7e-37ba-a57d-eb79d79a4ab84641536424733736813/1280625787"

Is it not possible to use Autoloader to access external storage in community version? Please guide.

Re: Unable to use Auto Loader for External Location in Community Edition

szymon_dybczak — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:19:47 GMT

Hi @AanchalSoni ,

To make it clear - are you using Free Edition or Community Edition? Because people confuses them all the time so it's better to clarify this first.

Re: Unable to use Auto Loader for External Location in Community Edition

AanchalSoni — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:38:02 GMT

I believe I'm on free edition. (I have access to volumes, Genie, etc. DBFS option is not available). Sharing an image for reference.

Re: Unable to use Auto Loader for External Location in Community Edition

szymon_dybczak — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:47:17 GMT

Ok, so this is a common problem with Free Edition. Since DBFS root is disabled on Free Edition to use Autloader you need to use Volumes. So all your source file that you want to load along with autloader schema and checkpoint location should be defined on Volume.

You can follow below guide which deals with exact same issue as yours. Just replay the same steps as the author of the article and it will work 😉

When DBFS Is Not an Option: How Databricks Volumes Saved the Day for File-Based Learning on Free Edition | by THE BRICK LEARNING | Towards Data Engineering | Medium

Re: Unable to use Auto Loader for External Location in Community Edition

AanchalSoni — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 06:37:43 GMT

Thanks for your guidance 🙂

Re: Unable to use Auto Loader for External Location in Community Edition

szymon_dybczak — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 07:41:30 GMT

No problem @AanchalSoni , I'm glad that I could help 😉