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Troubleshooting Athena errors

This page covers known issues when querying Lakehouse Iceberg tables from Athena via the AWS Glue Data Catalog.

Queries fail with HIVE_METASTORE_ERROR​

Error

HIVE_METASTORE_ERROR: Response too large (> 5242880 bytes) Service: AWSGlue; Status Code: 400; Error Code: InvalidInputException

Cause​

AWS Glue enforces a 5 MB cap on table metadata API responses. For tenants with large asset estates, Iceberg tables with extensive snapshot history—such as gold.assets, which covers all asset types across all connectors—can accumulate enough metadata to exceed this limit. When this happens, any query on the affected table fails with this error, even with LIMIT 10.

Solution​

  1. Open a support ticket and request that Atlan reduce the Iceberg snapshot retention period for the affected tables on your tenant. Atlan engineering lowers retention so older snapshots are removed from table metadata, bringing the Glue response back under the 5 MB cap and restoring visibility in the Glue catalog and Athena.

  2. In the ticket, include:

    • Your Atlan tenant URL
    • The names of the affected tables (for example, table, column)

See also​

Need help​

If you need assistance after trying these steps, contact Atlan Support.