When Trying to use Databricks Connect to Free Edition I am getting "Failed to Read Databricks table:

ShawnRR
New Contributor II

‎04-09-2026 11:45 AM

When Trying to use Databricks Connect to Free Edition I am getting "Failed to Read Databricks table: PERMISSION_DENIED:  PERMISSION_DENIED: Cannot access Spark Connect. (requietsId=.....

So I have not done anything to my instance aside from getting a token.  Is it possible to use Databricks Connect to access my table?  If so what else do I need to do?

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ShawnRR
New Contributor II

‎04-09-2026 12:02 PM

If it helps my AI says the following.... Note that I am the only user of this free account.  I have not done anything explicit with permissions.  I created the table I am trying to access and put data in it through the UI.  I can see when I look at the workspace in the gui the following...  Am I allowed to use database connect 18.0.0

 

 
 
 
 
 
_workspace_users_workspace_747##########771 <=== took out numbers
USE CATALOG
workspace

 
 



he project is now reaching Databricks Connect correctly, but the current blocker is workspace permissions, not code or versioning.

Current state:

dependency aligned to Databricks Connect 18.0.0
cluster ID accepted
connection reaches Spark Connect endpoint
failure is now:
PERMISSION_DENIED: Cannot access Spark Connect
Meaning:

your token/user can authenticate
but this workspace/user is not allowed to use Spark Connect on that compute
What must be fixed in Databricks:

ensure the cluster supports Databricks Connect / Spark Connect
ensure your user has permission to attach/use that cluster
ensure Spark Connect is enabled/allowed for the workspace and compute policy

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emma_s
Databricks Employee
Databricks Employee

‎04-17-2026 03:22 AM

Hi, I think this is the way you're configuring Databricks Connect. This error often happens when you're trying to configure Databricks Connect for a classic cluster rather than serverless. If you do the following, it should fix the issue. 

1. Update your ~/.databrickscfg — remove any cluster_id and add serverless_compute_id = auto:

 

 [DEFAULT]                                                                                                                                   
  host                  = https://<your-workspace>.cloud.databricks.com
  auth_type             = databricks-cli                                                                                                      
  serverless_compute_id = auto

Authenticate with:

databricks auth login --host https://<your-workspace>.cloud.databricks.com

2 In your Python code, build your session don't try and pass a cluster id. 

  from databricks.connect import DatabricksSession                                                                                            
                  
  spark = DatabricksSession.builder.getOrCreate()                                                                                             
  df = spark.read.table("workspace.default.<your_table>")
  df.show(5)

 

I  hope this helps.


Thanks,

Emma