Troubleshooting Amazon Athena Queries for Partitioned S3 Data
A company has a data lake in Amazon S3. The company collects AWS CloudTrail logs for multiple applications. The company stores the logs in the data lake, catalogs the logs in AWS Glue, and partitions the logs based on the year. The company uses Amazon Athena to analyze the logs. Recently, customers reported that a query on one of the Athena tables did not return any data. A data engineer must resolve the issue. Which combination of troubleshooting steps should the data engineer take? (Choose two.)
Community Votes
100% of anonymous learners picked answer AC. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.
Community Insight
Tests troubleshooting partitioned data lakes where missing metadata or wrong paths cause zero results, a common trap confusing infrastructure checks with schema repairs.
This page explains how to troubleshoot empty query results in Amazon Athena by verifying S3 paths and repairing table metadata partitions.
Users often choose B (timeout) or D (restart), failing to realize that empty results indicate missing data or metadata, not performance issues.
Community Discussion (3 comments)
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Expert Analysis
Why the Answer Is Correct
The correct options are A and C. When an Athena query returns no data despite logs being present, the two most likely causes are incorrect source paths or stale partition metadata. Option A is critical because if the table definition points to the wrong S3 prefix, Athena sees no files. Option C addresses the specific scenario of partitioned data; when new partitions are added to S3 without updating the Glue catalog, the MSCK REPAIR TABLE command synchronizes the metastore with the actual S3 directory structure.Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Option B is incorrect because increasing timeout does not retrieve non-existent data. Option D is invalid as Athena is a serverless service that cannot be restarted by users. Option E is dangerous and unnecessary; dropping and recreating the table risks losing configuration and does not fix underlying path or partition sync issues.Community Comment Notes
Community consensus strongly supports AC. As kupo777 noted, confirming the S3 location is a 'critical first step' before attempting metadata repairs. While one user suggested B, others correctly pointed out that timeout issues result in errors, not empty results, making AC the only logical combination for this symptom.Exam Strategy
When troubleshooting Athena, always distinguish between 'no data found' (path/metadata issue) and 'query failed' (permission/timeout issue). For partitioned tables, always consider MSCK REPAIR TABLE if data was recently added.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why not just delete and recreate the table?
Recreating loses configurations and doesn't fix the root cause if the path is wrong or partitions are desynced.
Does MSCK REPAIR TABLE work for all table types?
It primarily works for Hive-style partitioned tables stored in S3. It may not work for external tables with complex formats like Parquet without proper SerDe settings.
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