Failing oozie launcher on yarn-cluster mode - hadoop

Question

so I'm trying to run a spark job on yarn-cluster mode (succeeded running it in local mode and yarn-client), but I am running into a problem where oozie launcher fails. Below is the error message from stderr.
Failing Oozie Launcher, Main class [org.apache.oozie.action.hadoop.JavaMain], main() threw exception, java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.apache.spark.network.util.JavaUtils.byteStringAsBytes(Ljava/lang/String;)J
org.apache.oozie.action.hadoop.JavaMainException: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.apache.spark.network.util.JavaUtils.byteStringAsBytes(Ljava/lang/String;)J
at org.apache.oozie.action.hadoop.JavaMain.run(JavaMain.java:60)
at org.apache.oozie.action.hadoop.LauncherMain.run(LauncherMain.java:46)
at org.apache.oozie.action.hadoop.JavaMain.main(JavaMain.java:38)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497)
at org.apache.oozie.action.hadoop.LauncherMapper.map(LauncherMapper.java:228)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.MapRunner.run(MapRunner.java:54)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.MapTask.runOldMapper(MapTask.java:453)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.MapTask.run(MapTask.java:343)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.LocalContainerLauncher$EventHandler.runSubtask(LocalContainerLauncher.java:370)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.LocalContainerLauncher$EventHandler.runTask(LocalContainerLauncher.java:295)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.LocalContainerLauncher$EventHandler.access$200(LocalContainerLauncher.java:181)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.LocalContainerLauncher$EventHandler$1.run(LocalContainerLauncher.java:224)
at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.apache.spark.network.util.JavaUtils.byteStringAsBytes(Ljava/lang/String;)J
at org.apache.spark.util.Utils$.memoryStringToMb(Utils.scala:993)
at org.apache.spark.util.MemoryParam$.unapply(MemoryParam.scala:27)
at org.apache.spark.deploy.yarn.ClientArguments.parseArgs(ClientArguments.scala:168)
at org.apache.spark.deploy.yarn.ClientArguments.<init>(ClientArguments.scala:58)
at org.apache.spark.deploy.yarn.Client$.main(Client.scala:966)
at org.apache.spark.deploy.yarn.Client.main(Client.scala)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497)
at org.apache.spark.deploy.SparkSubmit$.org$apache$spark$deploy$SparkSubmit$$runMain(SparkSubmit.scala:674)
at org.apache.spark.deploy.SparkSubmit$.doRunMain$1(SparkSubmit.scala:180)
at org.apache.spark.deploy.SparkSubmit$.submit(SparkSubmit.scala:205)
at org.apache.spark.deploy.SparkSubmit$.main(SparkSubmit.scala:120)
at org.apache.spark.deploy.SparkSubmit.main(SparkSubmit.scala)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497)
at org.apache.oozie.action.hadoop.JavaMain.run(JavaMain.java:57)
... 19 more
The job runs on spark 1.5.2, so I downloaded and put the spark-assembly-1.5.2-hadoop2.6.0.jar file onto HDFS, and set the spark.yarn.jar field in my spark config file to point to the jar path, and set the oozie.libpath field in my job.properties file to point to the directory in which the jar resides.
I searched for other possible versions of Spark in the classpath section in the stdout log, and found two instances where spark-1.3.0-cdh5.4.5-yarn-shuffle.jar was being picked up (fortunately, spark-assembly-1.5.2-hadoop2.6.0.jar is being picked up elsewhere too so I am setting the path correctly).
So, the problem seems to be that oozie, or oozie launcher is defaulting to use spark 1.3 for some reason (which is installed on the system that the job is trying to run on). I tried setting the oozie.use.system.libpath field to false in the job.properties file, but it doesn't seem to have helped. Any ideas on what I can to do prevent spark 1.3 from being picked up, or any other solutions that can solve the NoSuchMethodError I am facing?
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.