How to use Hive Metastore with MySQL (for Thrift Server or spark-shell)?

I'm using Apache Spark 2.1.1 and I'd like to set it up with an external Hive metastore (for Spark Thrift Server specifically).

I have added hive-site.xml to $SPARK_HOME/conf folder that is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
  <property>
    <name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionURL</name>
    <value>jdbc:mysql://home.cu:3306/hive_metastore?createDatabaseIfNotExist=true&amp;useLegacyDatetimeCode=false&amp;serverTimezone=Europe/Berlin&amp;nullNamePatternMatchesAll=true </value>
    <description>JDBC connect string for a JDBC metastore</description>
  </property>

  <property>
    <name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionDriverName</name>
    <value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value>
    <description>Driver class name for a JDBC metastore</description>
  </property>

  <property>
    <name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionUserName</name>
    <value>hive</value>
    <description>username to use against metastore database</description>
  </property>

  <property>
    <name>javax.jdo.option.ConnectionPassword</name>
    <value>hive</value>
    <description>password to use against metastore database</description>
  </property>
  <property>
    <name>hive.metastore.schema.verification</name>
    <value>false</value>
    <description>password to use against metastore database</description>
  </property>

  <property>
    <name>hive.metastore.warehouse.dir</name>
    <value>hdfs://spark-master.cu:9000/value_iq/hive_warehouse/</value>
    <description>Warehouse Location</description>
  </property>
</configuration>

Whenever I try to run spark-shell or Spark Thrift Server they attempt to create the Hive metastore on MySQL (as there is no metastore yet) and they fails with the following error:

17/07/13 19:57:55 ERROR Datastore: Error thrown executing ALTER TABLE `PARTITIONS` ADD COLUMN `TBL_ID` BIGINT NULL : Table 'hive_metastore.partitions' doesn't exist
java.sql.SQLSyntaxErrorException: Table 'hive_metastore.partitions' doesn't exist
        at com.mysql.cj.jdbc.exceptions.SQLError.createSQLException(SQLError.java:536)
        at com.mysql.cj.jdbc.exceptions.SQLError.createSQLException(SQLError.java:513)
        at com.mysql.cj.jdbc.exceptions.SQLExceptionsMapping.translateException(SQLExceptionsMapping.java:115)
        at com.mysql.cj.jdbc.ConnectionImpl.execSQL(ConnectionImpl.java:1983)
        at com.mysql.cj.jdbc.ConnectionImpl.execSQL(ConnectionImpl.java:1936)
        at com.mysql.cj.jdbc.StatementImpl.executeInternal(StatementImpl.java:891)
        at com.mysql.cj.jdbc.StatementImpl.execute(StatementImpl.java:795)
        at com.jolbox.bonecp.StatementHandle.execute(StatementHandle.java:254)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.table.AbstractTable.executeDdlStatement(AbstractTable.java:760)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.table.AbstractTable.executeDdlStatementList(AbstractTable.java:711)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.table.TableImpl.validateColumns(TableImpl.java:259)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.RDBMSStoreManager$ClassAdder.performTablesValidation(RDBMSStoreManager.java:3393)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.RDBMSStoreManager$ClassAdder.addClassTablesAndValidate(RDBMSStoreManager.java:3190)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.RDBMSStoreManager$ClassAdder.run(RDBMSStoreManager.java:2841)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.AbstractSchemaTransaction.execute(AbstractSchemaTransaction.java:122)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.RDBMSStoreManager.addClasses(RDBMSStoreManager.java:1605)
        at org.datanucleus.store.AbstractStoreManager.addClass(AbstractStoreManager.java:954)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.RDBMSStoreManager.getDatastoreClass(RDBMSStoreManager.java:679)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.query.RDBMSQueryUtils.getStatementForCandidates(RDBMSQueryUtils.java:408)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.query.JDOQLQuery.compileQueryFull(JDOQLQuery.java:947)
        at org.datanucleus.store.rdbms.query.JDOQLQuery.compileInternal(JDOQLQuery.java:370)
        at org.datanucleus.store.query.Query.executeQuery(Query.java:1744)
        at org.datanucleus.store.query.Query.executeWithArray(Query.java:1672)
        at org.datanucleus.store.query.Query.execute(Query.java:1654)
        at org.datanucleus.api.jdo.JDOQuery.execute(JDOQuery.java:221)

I have found the problem, it was related with the MySQL driver, I was using mysql-connector-java-6.0.6-bin.jar and I have replaced it with and old one mysql-connector-java-5.1.23-bin.jar and now it works.