Hi, I have the same error that is very ennoying and seems to be related with issues you have with UDF.
Here is a reproducible example that happens when taking the closure (Zeppelin has been built with head of master with this command mvn install -DskipTests -Pspark-1.4 -Dspark.version=1.4.1 -Dhadoop.version=2.2.0 -Dprotobuf.version=2.5.0). val textFile = sc.textFile("hdfs://somefile.txt") val f = (s: String) => s textFile.map(f).count //works fine //res145: Long = 407 def f(s:String) = { s+s } textFile.map(f).count //fails -> org.apache.spark.SparkException: Job aborted due to stage failure: Task 566 in stage 87.0 failed 4 times, most recent failure: Lost task 566.3 in stage 87.0 (TID 43396, XXX.com): java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Lorg/apache/zeppelin/spark/ZeppelinContext; at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredFields0(Native Method) at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredFields(Class.java:2583) at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredField(Class.java:2068) at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.getDeclaredSUID(ObjectStreamClass.java:1659) at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.access$700(ObjectStreamClass.java:72) at java.io.ObjectStreamClass$2.run(ObjectStreamClass.java:480) at java.io.ObjectStreamClass$2.run(ObjectStreamClass.java:468) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.<init>(ObjectStreamClass.java:468) at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.lookup(ObjectStreamClass.java:365) at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.initNonProxy(ObjectStreamClass.java:602) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readNonProxyDesc(ObjectInputStream.java:1623) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readClassDesc(ObjectInputStream.java:1518) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1774) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.defaultReadFields(ObjectInputStream.java:2000) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1924) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351) at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject(ObjectInputStream.java:371) at org.apache.spark.serializer.JavaDeserializationStream.readObject(JavaSerializer.scala:69) at org.apache.spark.serializer.JavaSerializerInstance.deserialize(JavaSerializer.scala:95) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.ResultTask.runTask(ResultTask.scala:58) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.Task.run(Task.scala:70) at org.apache.spark.executor.Executor$TaskRunner.run(Executor.scala:213) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745) Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.zeppelin.spark.ZeppelinContext at org.apache.spark.repl.ExecutorClassLoader.findClass(ExecutorClassLoader.scala:69) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357) ... 64 more Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.zeppelin.spark.ZeppelinContext at java.lang.ClassLoader.findClass(ClassLoader.java:530) at org.apache.spark.util.ParentClassLoader.findClass(ParentClassLoader.scala:26) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424) at org.apache.spark.util.ParentClassLoader.loadClass(ParentClassLoader.scala:34) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357) at org.apache.spark.util.ParentClassLoader.loadClass(ParentClassLoader.scala:30) at org.apache.spark.repl.ExecutorClassLoader.findClass(ExecutorClassLoader.scala:64) ... 66 more Driver stacktrace: at org.apache.spark.scheduler.DAGScheduler.org$apache$spark$scheduler$DAGScheduler$$failJobAndIndependentStages(DAGScheduler.scala:1273) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.DAGScheduler$$anonfun$abortStage$1.apply(DAGScheduler.scala:1264) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.DAGScheduler$$anonfun$abortStage$1.apply(DAGScheduler.scala:1263) at scala.collection.mutable.ResizableArray$class.foreach(ResizableArray.scala:59) at scala.collection.mutable.ArrayBuffer.foreach(ArrayBuffer.scala:47) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.DAGScheduler.abortStage(DAGScheduler.scala:1263) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.DAGScheduler$$anonfun$handleTaskSetFailed$1.apply(DAGScheduler.scala:730) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.DAGScheduler$$anonfun$handleTaskSetFailed$1.apply(DAGScheduler.scala:730) at scala.Option.foreach(Option.scala:236) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.DAGScheduler.handleTaskSetFailed(DAGScheduler.scala:730) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.DAGSchedulerEventProcessLoop.onReceive(DAGScheduler.scala:1457) at org.apache.spark.scheduler.DAGSchedulerEventProcessLoop.onReceive(DAGScheduler.scala:1418) at org.apache.spark.util.EventLoop$$anon$1.run(EventLoop.scala:48) Best, David