Unable to Start Serverless Compute in Databricks Free Edition

[HariSankar]

Hello everyone,

I am using Databricks Free Edition. I had not used my account for quite some time, and I recently logged in to start working again.

When I try to start Serverless Compute, I get the following error:
Cannot start serverless compute

Has anyone faced this issue recently? Is there any fix or workaround?

Could this be related to my account being inactive for a long time or a server-side problem?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Satyasai]

Hi @HariSankar ,

If you opened an old notebook or imported a notebook (DBC, HTML, or Git), then Databricks may default its serverless execution environment version to an older version (like Version 1) that isn't supported anymore on the current Serverless Compute.

Fix: Open your notebook, go into the upper right corner where compute is attached, open Environment / Compute Settings, and update the Environment Version to the latest version (like Version 2 or higher). Or, you can copy-paste your code into a brand new notebook and attach Serverless Compute there.

[Ashwin_DSA]

Hi @HariSankar,

Welcome back to Databricks!  Here are some options to help you work through this. 

Firstly, check whether you are on the Free Edition or the old Databricks Free Edition. This is the most common cause of this exact error. The legacy Community Edition was retired in 2025 and replaced by the Free Edition. If your account has been dormant for a while, you may still be logged into a Community Edition workspace, where serverless compute simply won't start. You need to sign up for the Free Edition separately, even if you use the same email. Head to the Free Edition signup page and create a new Free Edition workspace. Your old Community Edition login won't automatically convert.

Just so you are aware, the Free Edition limitations page states that Databricks may delete Free Edition accounts that remain inactive for an extended period. If your account was deleted due to inactivity, you would need to sign up again from scratch. Your previous data and notebooks would not carry over in that case.

Free Edition accounts are subject to a fair usage policy. If you exceed your quota, compute resources are shut down for the rest of the day (or in extreme cases, the rest of the month). Your data stays intact, and you can resume once the limit resets. If you just logged in and ran several notebooks or queries, this could be the culprit. Try the next day again.

Try doing a hard refresh of your browser (Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R) to clear any stale session state. If that doesn't help, close all open notebooks, create a brand new notebook, and attach it to serverless compute. Some community members have also reported that imported notebooks default to an older environment version that causes this error. If you imported notebooks, check the environment version in the notebook settings and change it to the latest available version.

If none of the above resolves it, the most reliable path is to sign up for a fresh Free Edition account at databricks.com/try-databricks. Since Free Edition doesn't come with formal support or an SLA, the Databricks Free Edition Help board here in the community is the best place to follow up if you're still stuck. Include any error details or screenshots so others can help narrow it down.

Hope this helps.

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