# Python error when using HailContext

**URL:** <https://discuss.hail.is/t/python-error-when-using-hailcontext/118>\
**Category:** Help \[0.1\]\
**Created:** [February 8, 2017, 12:38pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/python-error-when-using-hailcontext/118 "2017-02-08T12:38:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![keebler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ba0ec/32.png) [@keebler](https://discuss.hail.is/u/keebler)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2017, 12:38pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/python-error-when-using-hailcontext/118/1 "2017-02-08T12:38:25Z")

</div>

So I’m on CDH 5.10 which has Spark 2.0.0 as a side parcel install, and I’m simply walking through the “Getting Started” tutorial here: [https://hail.is/hail/getting\_started.html](https://hail.is/hail/getting_started.html)

Everything below is fine, but I hit an error in the python/hail shell when using the HailContext. Any ideas about what may be going on ?

```
$ ls $HAIL_HOME
acknowledgements.txt build changes.md derby.log gradle gradlew.bat python settings.gradle style-guide.md www
AUTHORS build.gradle code_style.xml docs gradlew LICENSE README.md src testng.xml
$ ls $SPARK_HOME
bin etc lib meta
$ alias hail="PYTHONPATH=$SPARK_HOME/lib/spark2/python:$SPARK_HOME/lib/spark2/python/lib/py4j-0.10.3-src.zip:$HAIL_HOME/python SPARK_CLASSPATH=$HAIL_HOME/build/libs/hail-all-spark.jar python"
$ hail
Python 2.7.5 (default, Sep 15 2016, 22:37:39)
[GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-4)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import hail
>>> hc = hail.HailContext()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/keebler/hail/python/hail/context.py", line 37, in __init__
    SparkContext._ensure_initialized()
  File "/opt/cloudera/parcels/SPARK2/lib/spark2/python/pyspark/context.py", line 251, in _ensure_initialized
    SparkContext._gateway = gateway or launch_gateway(conf)
  File "/opt/cloudera/parcels/SPARK2/lib/spark2/python/pyspark/java_gateway.py", line 85, in launch_gateway
    proc = Popen(command, stdin=PIPE, preexec_fn=preexec_func, env=env)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 711, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1327, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![keebler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ba0ec/32.png) [@keebler](https://discuss.hail.is/u/keebler)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2017, 4:31pm UTC](https://discuss.hail.is/t/python-error-when-using-hailcontext/118/2 "2017-02-08T16:31:37Z")

</div>

This is fixed in CDH 5.10 using Spark2 parcel by setting:

```
export SPARK_HOME=/opt/cloudera/parcels/SPARK2/lib/spark2

alias hail="PYTHONPATH=$SPARK_HOME/python:$SPARK_HOME/python/lib/py4j-0.10.3-src.zip:$HAIL_HOME/python SPARK_CLASSPATH=$HAIL_HOME/build/libs/hail-all-spark.jar python"
```