HTableInterface doesn't ... implement closeable in the version of hbase we use. (That's stupid and they fixed it in the current version).  So we can't do ResourceUtils.closeOrLog(). I think we need a try clause or null check here then, since (for example) if you catch the TableNotFoundException in the constructor when constructing mHTable, then this will fail because it's null, and you won't releaseOrLog(mTable)