[Umeshkumar9414]

JIRA: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HBASE-30539

Problem

FSTableDescriptors.writeTableDescriptor retries 10 times, logs each failure at DEBUG, then returns null. createTableDescriptorForTableDirectory turns that into false, which is the same value it returns for "an equal descriptor already exists". CreateTableProcedure.createFsLayout ignores the return value, so when HDFS refuses every .tableinfo write the procedure still moves on to CREATE_TABLE_ADD_TO_META and CREATE_TABLE_ASSIGN_REGIONS.

The table then exists in hbase:meta and in the master's descriptor cache, but not on the file system. The RegionServer has no descriptor cache, so every region open fails with Missing table descriptor for .... The child TransitRegionStateProcedure retries forever and the parent create procedure stays in ASSIGN_REGIONS holding the table lock.

Fix

writeTableDescriptor now throws IOException (last failure as the cause) after all attempts fail, and logs failed attempts at WARN. createFsLayout therefore fails the step with an IOException; because CREATE_TABLE_WRITE_FS_LAYOUT begins with the pre-clean of the table dir, the procedure's retry with backoff is idempotent. Once HDFS recovers, the same procedure completes.

createTableDescriptorForTableDirectory now returns false only when an equal descriptor already exists. The two callers that checked for null (updateTableDescriptor, tryUpdateAndGetMetaTableDescriptor) lose their dead checks. Other callers that ignored the result (CloneSnapshotProcedure, SnapshotManifest, MasterRegion, BackupUtils) now see the failure instead of continuing silently.

Tests

TestCreateTableProcedureDescriptorWriteFailure injects .tabledesc create failures through a DistributedFileSystem subclass:

• testCreateTableDoesNotProceedWhenTableDescriptorWriteFails: every write fails. The create procedure keeps retrying and does not fail, finish, add rows to hbase:meta or start a child assign procedure. Once the injection is cleared, the same procedure completes and the region server can load the descriptor.
• testTransientWriteFailuresAbsorbedByWriteRetries: 3 failures (fewer than the 10 in-method attempts) are absorbed by the retry loop and the create succeeds.
• testProcedureRetriesAfterWriteAttemptsExhaustedThenSucceeds: 12 failures exhaust the first round, the procedure retries WRITE_FS_LAYOUT, then succeeds without ever adding the table to hbase:meta in between.

Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

[Umeshkumar9414]

it is dead code now as we are not returning null. we will throw exception.

[Apache9]

Better also add javadoc to describe the details? Like the two methods below.

[Umeshkumar9414]

Done