ActorNotFound Exception trying to start Spark 1.3.1 on windows 7

We're in the road block trying to figure out why Spark 1.3.1 isn't working for my colleague on his Windows 7 laptop. I have pretty much the same setup and everything works fine for me.

I searched for the error message but couldn't find a resolution.

Below is the exception message (after running the 1.1.1 vanilla install pre-built for Hadoop 2.4)

akka.actor.ActorInitializationException: exception during creation
        at akka.actor.ActorInitializationException$.apply(Actor.scala:164)
        at akka.actor.ActorCell.create(ActorCell.scala:596)
        at akka.actor.ActorCell.invokeAll$1(ActorCell.scala:456)
        at akka.actor.ActorCell.systemInvoke(ActorCell.scala:478)
        at akka.dispatch.Mailbox.processAllSystemMessages(Mailbox.scala:263)
        at akka.dispatch.Mailbox.run(Mailbox.scala:219)
        at akka.dispatch.ForkJoinExecutorConfigurator$AkkaForkJoinTask.exec(AbstractDispatcher.scala:393)
        at scala.concurrent.forkjoin.ForkJoinTask.doExec(ForkJoinTask.java:260)
        at scala.concurrent.forkjoin.ForkJoinPool$WorkQueue.runTask(ForkJoinPool.java:1339)
        at scala.concurrent.forkjoin.ForkJoinPool.runWorker(ForkJoinPool.java:1979)
        at scala.concurrent.forkjoin.ForkJoinWorkerThread.run(ForkJoinWorkerThread.java:107)
Caused by: akka.actor.ActorNotFound: Actor not found for: ActorSelection[Anchor(akka://sparkDriver/deadLetters), Path(/)
]
        at akka.actor.ActorSelection$$anonfun$resolveOne$1.apply(ActorSelection.scala:65)
        at akka.actor.ActorSelection$$anonfun$resolveOne$1.apply(ActorSelection.scala:63)
        at scala.concurrent.impl.CallbackRunnable.run(Promise.scala:32)
        at akka.dispatch.BatchingExecutor$Batch$$anonfun$run$1.processBatch$1(BatchingExecutor.scala:67)
        at akka.dispatch.BatchingExecutor$Batch$$anonfun$run$1.apply$mcV$sp(BatchingExecutor.scala:82)
        at akka.dispatch.BatchingExecutor$Batch$$anonfun$run$1.apply(BatchingExecutor.scala:59)
        at akka.dispatch.BatchingExecutor$Batch$$anonfun$run$1.apply(BatchingExecutor.scala:59)
        at scala.concurrent.BlockContext$.withBlockContext(BlockContext.scala:72)
        at akka.dispatch.BatchingExecutor$Batch.run(BatchingExecutor.scala:58)
        at akka.dispatch.ExecutionContexts$sameThreadExecutionContext$.unbatchedExecute(Future.scala:74)
        at akka.dispatch.BatchingExecutor$class.execute(BatchingExecutor.scala:110)
        at akka.dispatch.ExecutionContexts$sameThreadExecutionContext$.execute(Future.scala:73)
        at scala.concurrent.impl.CallbackRunnable.executeWithValue(Promise.scala:40)
        at scala.concurrent.impl.Promise$DefaultPromise.scala$concurrent$impl$Promise$DefaultPromise$$dispatchOrAddCallb
ack(Promise.scala:280)
        at scala.concurrent.impl.Promise$DefaultPromise.onComplete(Promise.scala:270)
        at akka.actor.ActorSelection.resolveOne(ActorSelection.scala:63)
        at akka.actor.ActorSelection.resolveOne(ActorSelection.scala:80)
        at org.apache.spark.util.AkkaUtils$.makeDriverRef(AkkaUtils.scala:221)
        at org.apache.spark.executor.Executor.startDriverHeartbeater(Executor.scala:393)
        at org.apache.spark.executor.Executor.<init>(Executor.scala:119)
        at org.apache.spark.scheduler.local.LocalActor.<init>(LocalBackend.scala:58)
        at org.apache.spark.scheduler.local.LocalBackend$$anonfun$start$1.apply(LocalBackend.scala:107)
        at org.apache.spark.scheduler.local.LocalBackend$$anonfun$start$1.apply(LocalBackend.scala:107)
        at akka.actor.TypedCreatorFunctionConsumer.produce(Props.scala:343)
        at akka.actor.Props.newActor(Props.scala:252)
        at akka.actor.ActorCell.newActor(ActorCell.scala:552)
        at akka.actor.ActorCell.create(ActorCell.scala:578)
        ... 9 more

      

        
        
        
      

    

Related problems:

Searching the internet for this problem did not bring up many results, which seems to indicate that this is a very rare and specific problem:

• I saw this error, but for Linux, not windows: http://apache-spark-user-list.1001560.n3.nabble.com/Actor-not-found-td22265.html

• This option also doesn't offer any permission: https://groups.google.com/a/lists.datastax.com/forum/#!topic/spark-connector-user/UqCYeUpgGCU

My guess is that this is due to some resolution / IP conflicts, etc., but I'm not sure.

More details

• JDK 1.7 64 bit, Windows 7 64 bit, Spark 1.3.1, prebuilt for Hadoop 2.4
• We ruled out all firewall related issues, we looked at all blocked traffic and it wasn't there.
• We tried "run as administrator" with no luck.
• We tried both Spark submit and spark sheath, the simplest Spark "Hellow World" didn't work.
• We got the UI at localhost: 4040, the job is marked as started but waits forever (for example, sc.parallelize(List(1,2,3)).count()
  
  never even ends
• No errors found in the logs
• The only difference I noticed between my system and my friend: when I ping localhost I get 127.0.0.1, when he does it, he gets: 1 not sure if this is related, but I saw a spark issue with problems with ipv6, and saw that it was only allowed in 1.4, is it related? https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-6440

I'm sure this is a network / security / permissions issue, but we can't pinpoint it.

Any ideas where to look next?