# I got an error trying to start a new Hail cluster

**URL:** <https://discuss.hail.is/t/i-got-an-error-trying-to-start-a-new-hail-cluster/1266>\
**Category:** Hail Query & hailctl\
**Created:** [February 3, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/i-got-an-error-trying-to-start-a-new-hail-cluster/1266 "2020-02-03T19:48:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![danking](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discuss.hail.is/danking/32/43_2.png) [@danking](https://discuss.hail.is/u/danking)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/i-got-an-error-trying-to-start-a-new-hail-cluster/1266/1 "2020-02-03T19:48:34Z")

</div>

I ran `hailctl dataproc start test` and received this error:

```auto
ERROR: (gcloud.dataproc.clusters.create) Error parsing [cluster].
The [cluster] resource is not properly specified.
Failed to find attribute [region]. The attribute can be set in the following ways:
 - provide the argument [--region] on the command line
 - set the property [dataproc/region]

```

What should I do?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danking](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discuss.hail.is/danking/32/43_2.png) [@danking](https://discuss.hail.is/u/danking)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2020, 7:53pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/i-got-an-error-trying-to-start-a-new-hail-cluster/1266/2 "2020-02-03T19:53:29Z")

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As of `gcloud 277.0.0 (2020-01-21)`, Dataproc clusters require an explicit region:

```auto
277.0.0 (2020-01-21)
  Breaking Changes
      ▪ **(App Engine)** Fixed longstanding issue where /path in
        dispatch.yaml was silently converted to /path/.
      ▪ **(Cloud Dataproc)**
      ▪ **(Cloud Dataproc)** Modified --region flag to be mandatory.
        ◆ To use Cloud Dataproc commands, pass --region flag on every
          invocation, or set dataproc/region configuration variable via gcloud
          config set dataproc/region.

```

Simply set a default dataproc region on every computer that you use, for example:

```auto
gcloud config set dataproc/region us-central1

```

Note that a region is more broad than a zone: `us-central1` is a region, `us-central1-a` is a zone.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chrisvittal](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discuss.hail.is/chrisvittal/32/327_2.png) [@chrisvittal](https://discuss.hail.is/u/chrisvittal)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2020, 8:02pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/i-got-an-error-trying-to-start-a-new-hail-cluster/1266/3 "2020-02-03T20:02:18Z")

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With this change, some dataproc resources that were created before may be in the `global` region.

If you are not seeing resources that you expect, like autoscaling policies, after setting the `region` argument, retry your command with `--region global` and see if that makes a difference.