DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A data engineer is troubleshooting an AWS Glue ETL job that fails with the error: 'An error occurred while calling o137.pyWriteDynamicFrame. No such file or directory: s3://bucket/output/part-00000.parquet'. The job reads from a JDBC source and writes to S3. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse a missing S3 path with a permissions issue, but the error message explicitly states 'No such file or directory', which points to the path not existing rather than a generic access denied, and the exam expects you to recognize that Glue does not auto-create the output S3 prefix.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The output S3 path does not exist and the Glue job does not have permission to create it
The error 'No such file or directory: s3://bucket/output/part-00000.parquet' indicates that the Glue job is trying to write to an S3 path that does not exist. By default, AWS Glue does not automatically create the target S3 bucket or prefix; it requires the path to already exist or the IAM role to have s3:PutObject permissions that allow the S3 service to create the object. Since the error occurs at the write stage (pyWriteDynamicFrame) and not during read, the most likely cause is that the output S3 path does not exist and the Glue job lacks the necessary permissions to create it.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The schema of the source data has changed, causing a mismatch during write
Why it's wrong here
Would cause schema-related error, not file not found.
- ✓
The output S3 path does not exist and the Glue job does not have permission to create it
Why this is correct
The error message indicates missing directory; Glue may not auto-create if permissions are insufficient.
- ✗
The Glue job ran out of memory during the transformation phase
Why it's wrong here
Memory errors produce different error messages.
- ✗
The IAM role attached to the Glue job lacks permissions to read from the JDBC source
Why it's wrong here
Would cause a different error (access denied).
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DEA-C01 exam.