Lake Database table created Delta Location not populating schema for Table in Synapse UI

@Anish, Sukhathankar

I understand the issue you’re facing, even though you have successfully created the Delta table (dim_currency) in your Synapse Lake Database, the columns are not appearing in the Synapse UI. This can happen due to how Delta tables register their metadata in Synapse.

Understanding the Issue

Since you migrated your Synapse workspace, the Delta table exists in the storage location, and you can query it using SELECT *, but the schema is not visible in the UI.

This happens because the table schema is not explicitly registered in the Lake Database catalog, even though the data is accessible through Spark SQL.

Recommended Solutions:

Approach 1 - Explicitly Register the Schema - Instead of directly creating the table with a location, define the schema during creation:

CREATE TABLE ma_presentation.dim_currency (
    column1 STRING,
    column2 INT,
    ...
)
USING delta
LOCATION 'abfss://.../data-processing-pipeline/gold_layer/dim_currency/';

This ensures that the schema is registered in the Lake Database catalog and visible in the UI.

Approach 2 - Trigger Metadata Sync Using Spark SQL - Run the following command to force metadata synchronization:

ANALYZE TABLE ma_presentation.dim_currency COMPUTE STATISTICS;

This may help update the schema in the UI.

Approach 3 - Verify Delta Files Structure - Make sure that your Delta Lake directory contains the correct structure (_delta_log directory and .parquet files). You can list the files in the Delta directory using:

%fs ls abfss://.../data-processing-pipeline/gold_layer/dim_currency/

Approach 4 - Re-create Table Metadata - If the problem persists, consider dropping and recreating the table with an explicitly defined schema as shown in Option 1.

Conclusion:

Synapse UI relies on the registered schema in the Lake Database catalog to display column information. When you create a table directly using the Delta location, the schema is inferred but not explicitly registered.

I hope this information helps. Please do let us know if you have any further queries.

Kindly consider upvoting the comment if the information provided is helpful. This can assist other community members in resolving similar issues.

Thank you.

@Anish, Sukhathankar

We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. In case if you have any resolution, please do share that same with the community as it can be helpful to others. Otherwise, will respond with more details and we will try to help.

None of the option above worked. But issue got resolved somehow, not immediately after publishing the notebook, but just switching to other branch and then back to main. I don't know what is the logic behind it and how it actually worked though. But I am seeing schema now under the columns.

@Anish, Sukhathankar

Glad to know that your issue got resolved.

It appears to be an intermittent issue.