CQLSH Connection Error: Bad Request: unconfigured columnfamily local

Question

I am trying to setup CQLSH on Windows. I did the python compilation and trying to start CQLSH, I get this weird error below. I dont have a columnfamily by name 'local'. And I havent specified my keyspace yet. So why does it complain that I dont have columnfamily 'local? Anyone understand this?

C:\apache-cassandra-2.0.1\bin>python cqlsh --cqlversion="3.0.0" Connection error: Bad Request: unconfigured columnfamily local

C:\apache-cassandra-2.0.1\bin>python cqlsh --cqlversion="3.0.0" localhost 9160 Connection error: Bad Request: unconfigured columnfamily local

Answer 1

This isnt a driver error, one of cassandra's internal CFs is missing.

The local column family is in the system keyspace, it stores information about C* nodes and should be created when cassandra starts up for the first time. This is probably some form of permission error (but C* should really fail to start if one of the system keyspaces is missing) restricting cassandra from creating the column-family, that or it has been manually removed.

The solution would be to clear your cassandra data directory and restart C* (dont do this if you are in a production environment unless you know how to backup / upgrade cassandra nodes, this will remove all data so snapshot it if you are going to go down this route)