diff --git a/databricks/sdk/runtime/__init__.py b/databricks/sdk/runtime/__init__.py
index 9230c7a83..962034ee4 100644
--- a/databricks/sdk/runtime/__init__.py
+++ b/databricks/sdk/runtime/__init__.py
@@ -3,6 +3,8 @@
 import logging
 from typing import Dict, Optional, Union, cast
 
+from databricks.sdk.errors import DatabricksError
+
 logger = logging.getLogger('databricks.sdk')
 is_local_implementation = True
 
@@ -73,6 +75,19 @@ def inner() -> Dict[str, str]:
         return None, None
 
 
+def _is_unexpected_exception_loading_user_namespace(e: Exception) -> bool:
+    # The dbruntime module is not present outside of DBR
+    if isinstance(e, ImportError):
+        return False
+    # In notebooks, the UserNamespaceInitializer works, but the notebook context is not propagated to
+    # spawned Python subprocesses, resulting in this class throwing an
+    # pyspark.errors.exceptions.base.PySparkRuntimeError. The SDK does not depend on PySpark, so we
+    # need to check the type and module name directly.
+    if type(e).__name__ == 'PySparkRuntimeError' and e.__module__ == 'pyspark.errors.exceptions.base':
+        return False
+    return True
+
+
 try:
     # Internal implementation
     # Separated from above for backward compatibility
@@ -85,7 +100,9 @@ def inner() -> Dict[str, str]:
             continue
         _globals[var] = userNamespaceGlobals[var]
     is_local_implementation = False
-except ImportError:
+except Exception as e:
+    if _is_unexpected_exception_loading_user_namespace(e):
+        raise DatabricksError(f"Failed to initialize runtime globals") from e
     # OSS implementation
     is_local_implementation = True