starting the hive metastore service worked for me.
First, set up the database for hive metastore:
$ hive --service metastore
`
https://docs.hortonworks.com/HDPDocuments/HDP2/HDP-2.3.4/bk_installing_manually_book/content/validate_installation.html
Second, run the following commands:
$ schematool -dbType mysql -initSchema
$ schematool -dbType mysql -info
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/Hive/Hive+Schema+Tool