Index: src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/mapreduce/TableInputFormatBase.java =================================================================== --- src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/mapreduce/TableInputFormatBase.java (revision 1052047) +++ src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/mapreduce/TableInputFormatBase.java (working copy) @@ -94,6 +94,11 @@ public RecordReader createRecordReader( InputSplit split, TaskAttemptContext context) throws IOException { + if (table == null) { + throw new IOException("Cannot create a record reader because of a" + + " previous error. Please look at the previous logs lines from" + + " the task's full log for more details."); + } TableSplit tSplit = (TableSplit) split; TableRecordReader trr = this.tableRecordReader; // if no table record reader was provided use default