topic using the SYNC TABLE command with AWS Glue tables in Data Governance

using the SYNC TABLE command with AWS Glue tables

JameDavi_51481 — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 23:02:56 GMT

According to the docs, we should be able to use SYNC TABLE to 'upgrade' a table from a Hive metastore to Unity Catalog. We are using AWS Glue as our Hive Metastore, but tables created in Glue do not seem to be set up in a format that Databricks likes. When we try to run `SYNC TABLE` on a Glue table, DBSQL returns the error message `[UPGRADE_NOT_SUPPORTED.HIVE_SERDE] Table is not eligible for upgrade from Hive Metastore to Unity Catalog. Reason: Hive SerDe table.`

Has anyone successfully gotten SYNC TABLE or SYNC SCHEMA working where a Glue table is the source?

Re: using the SYNC TABLE command with AWS Glue tables

Vidhi_Khaitan — Thu, 15 May 2025 08:22:32 GMT

Hi team,
The issue arises because Unity Catalog's SYNC command cannot process tables that were created using the Hive SerDe format in the hive_metastore catalog. This means that any attempts to upgrade such tables will fail.

You need to convert your Hive SerDe tables to Delta format using the following command:
CONVERT TO DELTA hive_metastore.<database-name>.<table-name>;

Then after converting the table to Delta format, you can issue the SYNC command to upgrade the table to Unity Catalog using:
SYNC hive_metastore.<database-name>.<table-name> TO unity_catalog.<database-name>.<table-name>;

Let me know if this helps!