Can't add foreign key to table MariaDB/MySQL - mysql

I'm creating tables in MariaDB 10.6 database for TPC-H benchmark.
CREATE TABLE works ok, but adding FOREIGN KEY fails.
I tried following mariadbtutorial and documentation but this doesn't work too.
I suspect:
syntax of FOREIGN KEY is wrong
Wrong datatype in column that reference foreign key.
column refering to foreign key should be index
there's something wrong with data generated by dbgen from TPC-H benchmark.
The errors that occured:
warning 150: alter table bazatest2.nation with foreign key (N_REGIONKEY) constraint failed. field type or character set for column 'N_REGIONKEY' does not match referenced column 'R_REGIONKEY'.
Tried changing BIGINT NOT NULL to BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL
but different error occurs:
error 1452 when i tried adding UNSIGNED to BIGINT in column that should refer to foreign key.
Part of file containing creates:
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS NATION CASCADE;
CREATE TABLE NATION (
N_NATIONKEY SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
N_NAME CHAR(25),
N_REGIONKEY BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL, -- references R_REGIONKEY
N_COMMENT VARCHAR(152)
);
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS REGION CASCADE;
CREATE TABLE REGION (
R_REGIONKEY SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
R_NAME CHAR(25),
R_COMMENT VARCHAR(152)
);
Part of file with foreign key constraints:
ALTER TABLE NATION ADD CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (N_REGIONKEY) REFERENCES REGION(R_REGIONKEY);
I tried solving this by changing syntax of alter table add constraint foreign key and searching for solutions all yesterday and haven't found solution.
Most likely is that column referencing to foreign key should be index, or multiple errors,
but I don't know what should i change in my code.


Thanks for all answers,
I added UNSIGNED to BIGINT, but it wasn't main source of my problem.
The problem was that I imported data from file where primary key values started at 0.
Here I found that in MariaDB/MySQL if 0 is given for primary key, it will automatically assign first value. It changed
0, 1, 2 to 1, 1, 2 and error occured.
There are two options:
changing settings of dbgen (program generating data for TPC-H benchmark).
Possible options are: INFORMIX, DB2, TDAT (Teradata), SQLSERVER, SYBASE, ORACLE, VECTORWISE. Options stand for database syntax, by there is no MYSQL option.
dbgen creates '|' separated file (.tbl) with records for this tables.
I used ORACLE and it generated file with primary keys starting at 0.
You can comment if you know which option would be most similar to MySQL syntax and contain keys starting at 0.
Or is there any automatic software which will add 1 to primary keys in this file. Although NATION and REGION tables are not so big (20, 5), some other tables (which I removed from this question for clarity) will have over 100 000 records.


syntax is wrong, use this
ALTER TABLE NATION ADD CONSTRAINT NATION_FK FOREIGN KEY (N_REGIONKEY) REFERENCES REGION(R_REGIONKEY);

Related

MySQL cannot add foreign key #1215 - Cannot add foreign key constraint [duplicate]

I am trying to create a table in MySQL with two foreign keys, which reference the primary keys in 2 other tables, but I am getting an errno: 150 error and it will not create the table.
Here is the SQL for all 3 tables:
CREATE TABLE role_groups (
`role_group_id` int(11) NOT NULL `AUTO_INCREMENT`,
`name` varchar(20),
`description` varchar(200),
PRIMARY KEY (`role_group_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `roles` (
`role_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`name` varchar(50),
`description` varchar(200),
PRIMARY KEY (`role_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
create table role_map (
`role_map_id` int not null `auto_increment`,
`role_id` int not null,
`role_group_id` int not null,
primary key(`role_map_id`),
foreign key(`role_id`) references roles(`role_id`),
foreign key(`role_group_id`) references role_groups(`role_group_id`)
) engine=InnoDB;

These conditions must be satisfied to not get error 150 re ALTER TABLE ADD FOREIGN KEY:
The Parent table must exist before you define a foreign key to reference it. You must define the tables in the right order: Parent table first, then the Child table. If both tables references each other, you must create one table without FK constraints, then create the second table, then add the FK constraint to the first table with ALTER TABLE.
The two tables must both support foreign key constraints, i.e. ENGINE=InnoDB. Other storage engines silently ignore foreign key definitions, so they return no error or warning, but the FK constraint is not saved.
The referenced columns in the Parent table must be the left-most columns of a key. Best if the key in the Parent is PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE KEY.
The FK definition must reference the PK column(s) in the same order as the PK definition. For example, if the FK REFERENCES Parent(a,b,c) then the Parent's PK must not be defined on columns in order (a,c,b).
The PK column(s) in the Parent table must be the same data type as the FK column(s) in the Child table. For example, if a PK column in the Parent table is UNSIGNED, be sure to define UNSIGNED for the corresponding column in the Child table field.
Exception: length of strings may be different. For example, VARCHAR(10) can reference VARCHAR(20) or vice versa.
Any string-type FK column(s) must have the same character set and collation as the corresponding PK column(s).
If there is data already in the Child table, every value in the FK column(s) must match a value in the Parent table PK column(s). Check this with a query like:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Child LEFT OUTER JOIN Parent ON Child.FK = Parent.PK
WHERE Parent.PK IS NULL;
This must return zero (0) unmatched values. Obviously, this query is an generic example; you must substitute your table names and column names.
Neither the Parent table nor the Child table can be a TEMPORARY table.
Neither the Parent table nor the Child table can be a PARTITIONED table.
If you declare a FK with the ON DELETE SET NULL option, then the FK column(s) must be nullable.
If you declare a constraint name for a foreign key, the constraint name must be unique in the whole schema, not only in the table in which the constraint is defined. Two tables may not have their own constraint with the same name.
If there are any other FK's in other tables pointing at the same field you are attempting to create the new FK for, and they are malformed (i.e. different collation), they will need to be made consistent first. This may be a result of past changes where SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0; was utilized with an inconsistent relationship defined by mistake. See #andrewdotn's answer below for instructions on how to identify these problem FK's.

MySQL’s generic “errno 150” message “means that a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed.” As you probably already know if you are reading this page, the generic “errno: 150” error message is really unhelpful. However:
You can get the actual error message by running SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and then looking for LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR in the output.
For example, this attempt to create a foreign key constraint:
CREATE TABLE t1
(id INTEGER);
CREATE TABLE t2
(t1_id INTEGER,
CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (t1_id) REFERENCES t1 (id));
fails with the error Can't create table 'test.t2' (errno: 150). That doesn’t tell anyone anything useful other than that it’s a foreign key problem. But run SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and it will say:
------------------------
LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR
------------------------
130811 23:36:38 Error in foreign key constraint of table test/t2:
FOREIGN KEY (t1_id) REFERENCES t1 (id)):
Cannot find an index in the referenced table where the
referenced columns appear as the first columns, or column types
in the table and the referenced table do not match for constraint.
It says that the problem is it can’t find an index. SHOW INDEX FROM t1 shows that there aren’t any indexes at all for table t1. Fix that by, say, defining a primary key on t1, and the foreign key constraint will be created successfully.

Make sure that the properties of the two fields you are trying to link with a constraint are exactly the same.
Often, the 'unsigned' property on an ID column will catch you out.
ALTER TABLE `dbname`.`tablename` CHANGE `fieldname` `fieldname` int(10) UNSIGNED NULL;

What's the current state of your database when you run this script? Is it completely empty? Your SQL runs fine for me when creating a database from scratch, but errno 150 usually has to do with dropping & recreating tables that are part of a foreign key. I'm getting the feeling you're not working with a 100% fresh and new database.
If you're erroring out when "source"-ing your SQL file, you should be able to run the command "SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS" from the MySQL prompt immediately after the "source" command to see more detailed error info.
You may want to check out the manual entry too:
If you re-create a table that was dropped, it must have a definition that conforms to the foreign key constraints referencing it. It must have the right column names and types, and it must have indexes on the referenced keys, as stated earlier. If these are not satisfied, MySQL returns error number 1005 and refers to error 150 in the error message. If MySQL reports an error number 1005 from a CREATE TABLE statement, and the error message refers to error 150, table creation failed because a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed.
— MySQL 5.1 reference manual.

For people who are viewing this thread with the same problem:
There are a lot of reasons for getting errors like this. For a fairly complete list of causes and solutions of foreign key errors in MySQL (including those discussed here), check out this link:
MySQL Foreign Key Errors and Errno 150

For others that find this SO entry via Google: Be sure that you aren't trying to do a SET NULL action on a foreign key (to be) column defined as "NOT NULL." That caused great frustration until I remembered to do a CHECK ENGINE INNODB STATUS.

Definitely it is not the case but I found this mistake pretty common and unobvious. The target of a FOREIGN KEY could be not PRIMARY KEY. Te answer which become useful for me is:
A FOREIGN KEY always must be pointed to a PRIMARY KEY true field of other table.
CREATE TABLE users(
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
username VARCHAR(40));
CREATE TABLE userroles(
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
user_id INT NOT NULL,
FOREIGN KEY(user_id) REFERENCES users(id));

As pointed by #andrewdotn the best way is to see the detailed error(SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS;) instead of just an error code.
One of the reasons could be that an index already exists with the same name, may be in another table. As a practice, I recommend prefixing table name before the index name to avoid such collisions. e.g. instead of idx_userId use idx_userActionMapping_userId.

Please make sure at first that
you are using InnoDB tables.
field for FOREIGN KEY has the same type and length (!) as source field.
I had the same trouble and I've fixed it. I had unsigned INT for one field and just integer for other field.

Helpful tip, use SHOW WARNINGS; after trying your CREATE query and you will receive the error as well as the more detailed warning:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Level | Code | Message |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------+
| Warning | 150 | Create table 'fakeDatabase/exampleTable' with foreign key constraint failed. There is no index in the referenced table where the referenced columns appear as the first columns.
|
| Error | 1005 | Can't create table 'exampleTable' (errno:150) |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------+
So in this case, time to re-create my table!

This is usually happening when you try to source file into existing database.
Drop all the tables first (or the DB itself).
And then source file with SET foreign_key_checks = 0; at the beginning and SET foreign_key_checks = 1; at the end.

I've found another reason this fails... case sensitive table names.
For this table definition
CREATE TABLE user (
userId int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
username varchar(30) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
This table definition works
CREATE TABLE product (
id int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
userId int,
FOREIGN KEY fkProductUser1(userId) REFERENCES **u**ser(userId)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
whereas this one fails
CREATE TABLE product (
id int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
userId int,
FOREIGN KEY fkProductUser1(userId) REFERENCES User(userId)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
The fact that it worked on Windows and failed on Unix took me a couple of hours to figure out. Hope that helps someone else.

MySQL Workbench 6.3 for Mac OS.
Problem: errno 150 on table X when trying to do Forward Engineering on a DB diagram, 20 out of 21 succeeded, 1 failed. If FKs on table X were deleted, the error moved to a different table that wasn't failing before.
Changed all tables engine to myISAM and it worked just fine.

Also worth checking that you aren't accidentally operating on the wrong database. This error will occur if the foreign table does not exist. Why does MySQL have to be so cryptic?

Make sure that the foreign keys are not listed as unique in the parent. I had this same problem and I solved it by demarcating it as not unique.

In my case it was due to the fact that the field that was a foreign key field had a too long name, ie. foreign key (some_other_table_with_long_name_id). Try sth shorter. Error message is a bit misleading in that case.
Also, as #Jon mentioned earlier - field definitions have to be the same (watch out for unsigned subtype).

(Side notes too big for a Comment)
There is no need for an AUTO_INCREMENT id in a mapping table; get rid of it.
Change the PRIMARY KEY to (role_id, role_group_id) (in either order). This will make accesses faster.
Since you probably want to map both directions, also add an INDEX with those two columns in the opposite order. (There is no need to make it UNIQUE.)
More tips: http://mysql.rjweb.org/doc.php/index_cookbook_mysql#speeding_up_wp_postmeta

When the foreign key constraint is based on varchar type, then in addition to the list provided by marv-el the target column must have an unique constraint.

execute below line before creating table :
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS option specifies whether or not to check foreign key constraints for InnoDB tables.
-- Specify to check foreign key constraints (this is the default)
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
 
-- Do not check foreign key constraints
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
When to Use :
Temporarily disabling referential constraints (set FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS to 0) is useful when you need to re-create the tables and load data in any parent-child order

I encountered the same problem, but I check find that I hadn't the parent table. So I just edit the parent migration in front of the child migration. Just do it.

SQL: (errno: 150 "Foreign key constraint is incorrectly formed") [duplicate]

I am trying to create a table in MySQL with two foreign keys, which reference the primary keys in 2 other tables, but I am getting an errno: 150 error and it will not create the table.
Here is the SQL for all 3 tables:
CREATE TABLE role_groups (
`role_group_id` int(11) NOT NULL `AUTO_INCREMENT`,
`name` varchar(20),
`description` varchar(200),
PRIMARY KEY (`role_group_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `roles` (
`role_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`name` varchar(50),
`description` varchar(200),
PRIMARY KEY (`role_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
create table role_map (
`role_map_id` int not null `auto_increment`,
`role_id` int not null,
`role_group_id` int not null,
primary key(`role_map_id`),
foreign key(`role_id`) references roles(`role_id`),
foreign key(`role_group_id`) references role_groups(`role_group_id`)
) engine=InnoDB;

These conditions must be satisfied to not get error 150 re ALTER TABLE ADD FOREIGN KEY:
The Parent table must exist before you define a foreign key to reference it. You must define the tables in the right order: Parent table first, then the Child table. If both tables references each other, you must create one table without FK constraints, then create the second table, then add the FK constraint to the first table with ALTER TABLE.
The two tables must both support foreign key constraints, i.e. ENGINE=InnoDB. Other storage engines silently ignore foreign key definitions, so they return no error or warning, but the FK constraint is not saved.
The referenced columns in the Parent table must be the left-most columns of a key. Best if the key in the Parent is PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE KEY.
The FK definition must reference the PK column(s) in the same order as the PK definition. For example, if the FK REFERENCES Parent(a,b,c) then the Parent's PK must not be defined on columns in order (a,c,b).
The PK column(s) in the Parent table must be the same data type as the FK column(s) in the Child table. For example, if a PK column in the Parent table is UNSIGNED, be sure to define UNSIGNED for the corresponding column in the Child table field.
Exception: length of strings may be different. For example, VARCHAR(10) can reference VARCHAR(20) or vice versa.
Any string-type FK column(s) must have the same character set and collation as the corresponding PK column(s).
If there is data already in the Child table, every value in the FK column(s) must match a value in the Parent table PK column(s). Check this with a query like:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Child LEFT OUTER JOIN Parent ON Child.FK = Parent.PK
WHERE Parent.PK IS NULL;
This must return zero (0) unmatched values. Obviously, this query is an generic example; you must substitute your table names and column names.
Neither the Parent table nor the Child table can be a TEMPORARY table.
Neither the Parent table nor the Child table can be a PARTITIONED table.
If you declare a FK with the ON DELETE SET NULL option, then the FK column(s) must be nullable.
If you declare a constraint name for a foreign key, the constraint name must be unique in the whole schema, not only in the table in which the constraint is defined. Two tables may not have their own constraint with the same name.
If there are any other FK's in other tables pointing at the same field you are attempting to create the new FK for, and they are malformed (i.e. different collation), they will need to be made consistent first. This may be a result of past changes where SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0; was utilized with an inconsistent relationship defined by mistake. See #andrewdotn's answer below for instructions on how to identify these problem FK's.

MySQL’s generic “errno 150” message “means that a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed.” As you probably already know if you are reading this page, the generic “errno: 150” error message is really unhelpful. However:
You can get the actual error message by running SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and then looking for LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR in the output.
For example, this attempt to create a foreign key constraint:
CREATE TABLE t1
(id INTEGER);
CREATE TABLE t2
(t1_id INTEGER,
CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (t1_id) REFERENCES t1 (id));
fails with the error Can't create table 'test.t2' (errno: 150). That doesn’t tell anyone anything useful other than that it’s a foreign key problem. But run SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and it will say:
------------------------
LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR
------------------------
130811 23:36:38 Error in foreign key constraint of table test/t2:
FOREIGN KEY (t1_id) REFERENCES t1 (id)):
Cannot find an index in the referenced table where the
referenced columns appear as the first columns, or column types
in the table and the referenced table do not match for constraint.
It says that the problem is it can’t find an index. SHOW INDEX FROM t1 shows that there aren’t any indexes at all for table t1. Fix that by, say, defining a primary key on t1, and the foreign key constraint will be created successfully.

Make sure that the properties of the two fields you are trying to link with a constraint are exactly the same.
Often, the 'unsigned' property on an ID column will catch you out.
ALTER TABLE `dbname`.`tablename` CHANGE `fieldname` `fieldname` int(10) UNSIGNED NULL;

What's the current state of your database when you run this script? Is it completely empty? Your SQL runs fine for me when creating a database from scratch, but errno 150 usually has to do with dropping & recreating tables that are part of a foreign key. I'm getting the feeling you're not working with a 100% fresh and new database.
If you're erroring out when "source"-ing your SQL file, you should be able to run the command "SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS" from the MySQL prompt immediately after the "source" command to see more detailed error info.
You may want to check out the manual entry too:
If you re-create a table that was dropped, it must have a definition that conforms to the foreign key constraints referencing it. It must have the right column names and types, and it must have indexes on the referenced keys, as stated earlier. If these are not satisfied, MySQL returns error number 1005 and refers to error 150 in the error message. If MySQL reports an error number 1005 from a CREATE TABLE statement, and the error message refers to error 150, table creation failed because a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed.
— MySQL 5.1 reference manual.

For people who are viewing this thread with the same problem:
There are a lot of reasons for getting errors like this. For a fairly complete list of causes and solutions of foreign key errors in MySQL (including those discussed here), check out this link:
MySQL Foreign Key Errors and Errno 150

For others that find this SO entry via Google: Be sure that you aren't trying to do a SET NULL action on a foreign key (to be) column defined as "NOT NULL." That caused great frustration until I remembered to do a CHECK ENGINE INNODB STATUS.

Definitely it is not the case but I found this mistake pretty common and unobvious. The target of a FOREIGN KEY could be not PRIMARY KEY. Te answer which become useful for me is:
A FOREIGN KEY always must be pointed to a PRIMARY KEY true field of other table.
CREATE TABLE users(
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
username VARCHAR(40));
CREATE TABLE userroles(
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
user_id INT NOT NULL,
FOREIGN KEY(user_id) REFERENCES users(id));

As pointed by #andrewdotn the best way is to see the detailed error(SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS;) instead of just an error code.
One of the reasons could be that an index already exists with the same name, may be in another table. As a practice, I recommend prefixing table name before the index name to avoid such collisions. e.g. instead of idx_userId use idx_userActionMapping_userId.

Please make sure at first that
you are using InnoDB tables.
field for FOREIGN KEY has the same type and length (!) as source field.
I had the same trouble and I've fixed it. I had unsigned INT for one field and just integer for other field.

Helpful tip, use SHOW WARNINGS; after trying your CREATE query and you will receive the error as well as the more detailed warning:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Level | Code | Message |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------+
| Warning | 150 | Create table 'fakeDatabase/exampleTable' with foreign key constraint failed. There is no index in the referenced table where the referenced columns appear as the first columns.
|
| Error | 1005 | Can't create table 'exampleTable' (errno:150) |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------+
So in this case, time to re-create my table!

This is usually happening when you try to source file into existing database.
Drop all the tables first (or the DB itself).
And then source file with SET foreign_key_checks = 0; at the beginning and SET foreign_key_checks = 1; at the end.

I've found another reason this fails... case sensitive table names.
For this table definition
CREATE TABLE user (
userId int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
username varchar(30) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
This table definition works
CREATE TABLE product (
id int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
userId int,
FOREIGN KEY fkProductUser1(userId) REFERENCES **u**ser(userId)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
whereas this one fails
CREATE TABLE product (
id int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
userId int,
FOREIGN KEY fkProductUser1(userId) REFERENCES User(userId)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
The fact that it worked on Windows and failed on Unix took me a couple of hours to figure out. Hope that helps someone else.

MySQL Workbench 6.3 for Mac OS.
Problem: errno 150 on table X when trying to do Forward Engineering on a DB diagram, 20 out of 21 succeeded, 1 failed. If FKs on table X were deleted, the error moved to a different table that wasn't failing before.
Changed all tables engine to myISAM and it worked just fine.

Also worth checking that you aren't accidentally operating on the wrong database. This error will occur if the foreign table does not exist. Why does MySQL have to be so cryptic?

Make sure that the foreign keys are not listed as unique in the parent. I had this same problem and I solved it by demarcating it as not unique.

In my case it was due to the fact that the field that was a foreign key field had a too long name, ie. foreign key (some_other_table_with_long_name_id). Try sth shorter. Error message is a bit misleading in that case.
Also, as #Jon mentioned earlier - field definitions have to be the same (watch out for unsigned subtype).

(Side notes too big for a Comment)
There is no need for an AUTO_INCREMENT id in a mapping table; get rid of it.
Change the PRIMARY KEY to (role_id, role_group_id) (in either order). This will make accesses faster.
Since you probably want to map both directions, also add an INDEX with those two columns in the opposite order. (There is no need to make it UNIQUE.)
More tips: http://mysql.rjweb.org/doc.php/index_cookbook_mysql#speeding_up_wp_postmeta

When the foreign key constraint is based on varchar type, then in addition to the list provided by marv-el the target column must have an unique constraint.

execute below line before creating table :
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS option specifies whether or not to check foreign key constraints for InnoDB tables.
-- Specify to check foreign key constraints (this is the default)
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
 
-- Do not check foreign key constraints
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
When to Use :
Temporarily disabling referential constraints (set FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS to 0) is useful when you need to re-create the tables and load data in any parent-child order

I encountered the same problem, but I check find that I hadn't the parent table. So I just edit the parent migration in front of the child migration. Just do it.

I'v got problem with connecting tow tables with primary key and foreign key to each other in mysql [duplicate]

I am trying to create a table in MySQL with two foreign keys, which reference the primary keys in 2 other tables, but I am getting an errno: 150 error and it will not create the table.
Here is the SQL for all 3 tables:
CREATE TABLE role_groups (
`role_group_id` int(11) NOT NULL `AUTO_INCREMENT`,
`name` varchar(20),
`description` varchar(200),
PRIMARY KEY (`role_group_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `roles` (
`role_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`name` varchar(50),
`description` varchar(200),
PRIMARY KEY (`role_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
create table role_map (
`role_map_id` int not null `auto_increment`,
`role_id` int not null,
`role_group_id` int not null,
primary key(`role_map_id`),
foreign key(`role_id`) references roles(`role_id`),
foreign key(`role_group_id`) references role_groups(`role_group_id`)
) engine=InnoDB;

These conditions must be satisfied to not get error 150 re ALTER TABLE ADD FOREIGN KEY:
The Parent table must exist before you define a foreign key to reference it. You must define the tables in the right order: Parent table first, then the Child table. If both tables references each other, you must create one table without FK constraints, then create the second table, then add the FK constraint to the first table with ALTER TABLE.
The two tables must both support foreign key constraints, i.e. ENGINE=InnoDB. Other storage engines silently ignore foreign key definitions, so they return no error or warning, but the FK constraint is not saved.
The referenced columns in the Parent table must be the left-most columns of a key. Best if the key in the Parent is PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE KEY.
The FK definition must reference the PK column(s) in the same order as the PK definition. For example, if the FK REFERENCES Parent(a,b,c) then the Parent's PK must not be defined on columns in order (a,c,b).
The PK column(s) in the Parent table must be the same data type as the FK column(s) in the Child table. For example, if a PK column in the Parent table is UNSIGNED, be sure to define UNSIGNED for the corresponding column in the Child table field.
Exception: length of strings may be different. For example, VARCHAR(10) can reference VARCHAR(20) or vice versa.
Any string-type FK column(s) must have the same character set and collation as the corresponding PK column(s).
If there is data already in the Child table, every value in the FK column(s) must match a value in the Parent table PK column(s). Check this with a query like:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Child LEFT OUTER JOIN Parent ON Child.FK = Parent.PK
WHERE Parent.PK IS NULL;
This must return zero (0) unmatched values. Obviously, this query is an generic example; you must substitute your table names and column names.
Neither the Parent table nor the Child table can be a TEMPORARY table.
Neither the Parent table nor the Child table can be a PARTITIONED table.
If you declare a FK with the ON DELETE SET NULL option, then the FK column(s) must be nullable.
If you declare a constraint name for a foreign key, the constraint name must be unique in the whole schema, not only in the table in which the constraint is defined. Two tables may not have their own constraint with the same name.
If there are any other FK's in other tables pointing at the same field you are attempting to create the new FK for, and they are malformed (i.e. different collation), they will need to be made consistent first. This may be a result of past changes where SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0; was utilized with an inconsistent relationship defined by mistake. See #andrewdotn's answer below for instructions on how to identify these problem FK's.

MySQL’s generic “errno 150” message “means that a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed.” As you probably already know if you are reading this page, the generic “errno: 150” error message is really unhelpful. However:
You can get the actual error message by running SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and then looking for LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR in the output.
For example, this attempt to create a foreign key constraint:
CREATE TABLE t1
(id INTEGER);
CREATE TABLE t2
(t1_id INTEGER,
CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (t1_id) REFERENCES t1 (id));
fails with the error Can't create table 'test.t2' (errno: 150). That doesn’t tell anyone anything useful other than that it’s a foreign key problem. But run SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and it will say:
------------------------
LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR
------------------------
130811 23:36:38 Error in foreign key constraint of table test/t2:
FOREIGN KEY (t1_id) REFERENCES t1 (id)):
Cannot find an index in the referenced table where the
referenced columns appear as the first columns, or column types
in the table and the referenced table do not match for constraint.
It says that the problem is it can’t find an index. SHOW INDEX FROM t1 shows that there aren’t any indexes at all for table t1. Fix that by, say, defining a primary key on t1, and the foreign key constraint will be created successfully.

Make sure that the properties of the two fields you are trying to link with a constraint are exactly the same.
Often, the 'unsigned' property on an ID column will catch you out.
ALTER TABLE `dbname`.`tablename` CHANGE `fieldname` `fieldname` int(10) UNSIGNED NULL;

What's the current state of your database when you run this script? Is it completely empty? Your SQL runs fine for me when creating a database from scratch, but errno 150 usually has to do with dropping & recreating tables that are part of a foreign key. I'm getting the feeling you're not working with a 100% fresh and new database.
If you're erroring out when "source"-ing your SQL file, you should be able to run the command "SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS" from the MySQL prompt immediately after the "source" command to see more detailed error info.
You may want to check out the manual entry too:
If you re-create a table that was dropped, it must have a definition that conforms to the foreign key constraints referencing it. It must have the right column names and types, and it must have indexes on the referenced keys, as stated earlier. If these are not satisfied, MySQL returns error number 1005 and refers to error 150 in the error message. If MySQL reports an error number 1005 from a CREATE TABLE statement, and the error message refers to error 150, table creation failed because a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed.
— MySQL 5.1 reference manual.

For people who are viewing this thread with the same problem:
There are a lot of reasons for getting errors like this. For a fairly complete list of causes and solutions of foreign key errors in MySQL (including those discussed here), check out this link:
MySQL Foreign Key Errors and Errno 150

For others that find this SO entry via Google: Be sure that you aren't trying to do a SET NULL action on a foreign key (to be) column defined as "NOT NULL." That caused great frustration until I remembered to do a CHECK ENGINE INNODB STATUS.

Definitely it is not the case but I found this mistake pretty common and unobvious. The target of a FOREIGN KEY could be not PRIMARY KEY. Te answer which become useful for me is:
A FOREIGN KEY always must be pointed to a PRIMARY KEY true field of other table.
CREATE TABLE users(
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
username VARCHAR(40));
CREATE TABLE userroles(
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
user_id INT NOT NULL,
FOREIGN KEY(user_id) REFERENCES users(id));

As pointed by #andrewdotn the best way is to see the detailed error(SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS;) instead of just an error code.
One of the reasons could be that an index already exists with the same name, may be in another table. As a practice, I recommend prefixing table name before the index name to avoid such collisions. e.g. instead of idx_userId use idx_userActionMapping_userId.

Please make sure at first that
you are using InnoDB tables.
field for FOREIGN KEY has the same type and length (!) as source field.
I had the same trouble and I've fixed it. I had unsigned INT for one field and just integer for other field.

Helpful tip, use SHOW WARNINGS; after trying your CREATE query and you will receive the error as well as the more detailed warning:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Level | Code | Message |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------+
| Warning | 150 | Create table 'fakeDatabase/exampleTable' with foreign key constraint failed. There is no index in the referenced table where the referenced columns appear as the first columns.
|
| Error | 1005 | Can't create table 'exampleTable' (errno:150) |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------+
So in this case, time to re-create my table!

This is usually happening when you try to source file into existing database.
Drop all the tables first (or the DB itself).
And then source file with SET foreign_key_checks = 0; at the beginning and SET foreign_key_checks = 1; at the end.

I've found another reason this fails... case sensitive table names.
For this table definition
CREATE TABLE user (
userId int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
username varchar(30) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
This table definition works
CREATE TABLE product (
id int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
userId int,
FOREIGN KEY fkProductUser1(userId) REFERENCES **u**ser(userId)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
whereas this one fails
CREATE TABLE product (
id int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
userId int,
FOREIGN KEY fkProductUser1(userId) REFERENCES User(userId)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
The fact that it worked on Windows and failed on Unix took me a couple of hours to figure out. Hope that helps someone else.

MySQL Workbench 6.3 for Mac OS.
Problem: errno 150 on table X when trying to do Forward Engineering on a DB diagram, 20 out of 21 succeeded, 1 failed. If FKs on table X were deleted, the error moved to a different table that wasn't failing before.
Changed all tables engine to myISAM and it worked just fine.

Also worth checking that you aren't accidentally operating on the wrong database. This error will occur if the foreign table does not exist. Why does MySQL have to be so cryptic?

Make sure that the foreign keys are not listed as unique in the parent. I had this same problem and I solved it by demarcating it as not unique.

In my case it was due to the fact that the field that was a foreign key field had a too long name, ie. foreign key (some_other_table_with_long_name_id). Try sth shorter. Error message is a bit misleading in that case.
Also, as #Jon mentioned earlier - field definitions have to be the same (watch out for unsigned subtype).

(Side notes too big for a Comment)
There is no need for an AUTO_INCREMENT id in a mapping table; get rid of it.
Change the PRIMARY KEY to (role_id, role_group_id) (in either order). This will make accesses faster.
Since you probably want to map both directions, also add an INDEX with those two columns in the opposite order. (There is no need to make it UNIQUE.)
More tips: http://mysql.rjweb.org/doc.php/index_cookbook_mysql#speeding_up_wp_postmeta

When the foreign key constraint is based on varchar type, then in addition to the list provided by marv-el the target column must have an unique constraint.

execute below line before creating table :
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS option specifies whether or not to check foreign key constraints for InnoDB tables.
-- Specify to check foreign key constraints (this is the default)
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
 
-- Do not check foreign key constraints
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
When to Use :
Temporarily disabling referential constraints (set FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS to 0) is useful when you need to re-create the tables and load data in any parent-child order

I encountered the same problem, but I check find that I hadn't the parent table. So I just edit the parent migration in front of the child migration. Just do it.

MySQL Cannot Add Foreign Key Constraint - #1215 [duplicate]

I am trying to create a table in MySQL with two foreign keys, which reference the primary keys in 2 other tables, but I am getting an errno: 150 error and it will not create the table.
Here is the SQL for all 3 tables:
CREATE TABLE role_groups (
`role_group_id` int(11) NOT NULL `AUTO_INCREMENT`,
`name` varchar(20),
`description` varchar(200),
PRIMARY KEY (`role_group_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `roles` (
`role_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`name` varchar(50),
`description` varchar(200),
PRIMARY KEY (`role_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
create table role_map (
`role_map_id` int not null `auto_increment`,
`role_id` int not null,
`role_group_id` int not null,
primary key(`role_map_id`),
foreign key(`role_id`) references roles(`role_id`),
foreign key(`role_group_id`) references role_groups(`role_group_id`)
) engine=InnoDB;

These conditions must be satisfied to not get error 150 re ALTER TABLE ADD FOREIGN KEY:
The Parent table must exist before you define a foreign key to reference it. You must define the tables in the right order: Parent table first, then the Child table. If both tables references each other, you must create one table without FK constraints, then create the second table, then add the FK constraint to the first table with ALTER TABLE.
The two tables must both support foreign key constraints, i.e. ENGINE=InnoDB. Other storage engines silently ignore foreign key definitions, so they return no error or warning, but the FK constraint is not saved.
The referenced columns in the Parent table must be the left-most columns of a key. Best if the key in the Parent is PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE KEY.
The FK definition must reference the PK column(s) in the same order as the PK definition. For example, if the FK REFERENCES Parent(a,b,c) then the Parent's PK must not be defined on columns in order (a,c,b).
The PK column(s) in the Parent table must be the same data type as the FK column(s) in the Child table. For example, if a PK column in the Parent table is UNSIGNED, be sure to define UNSIGNED for the corresponding column in the Child table field.
Exception: length of strings may be different. For example, VARCHAR(10) can reference VARCHAR(20) or vice versa.
Any string-type FK column(s) must have the same character set and collation as the corresponding PK column(s).
If there is data already in the Child table, every value in the FK column(s) must match a value in the Parent table PK column(s). Check this with a query like:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Child LEFT OUTER JOIN Parent ON Child.FK = Parent.PK
WHERE Parent.PK IS NULL;
This must return zero (0) unmatched values. Obviously, this query is an generic example; you must substitute your table names and column names.
Neither the Parent table nor the Child table can be a TEMPORARY table.
Neither the Parent table nor the Child table can be a PARTITIONED table.
If you declare a FK with the ON DELETE SET NULL option, then the FK column(s) must be nullable.
If you declare a constraint name for a foreign key, the constraint name must be unique in the whole schema, not only in the table in which the constraint is defined. Two tables may not have their own constraint with the same name.
If there are any other FK's in other tables pointing at the same field you are attempting to create the new FK for, and they are malformed (i.e. different collation), they will need to be made consistent first. This may be a result of past changes where SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0; was utilized with an inconsistent relationship defined by mistake. See #andrewdotn's answer below for instructions on how to identify these problem FK's.

MySQL’s generic “errno 150” message “means that a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed.” As you probably already know if you are reading this page, the generic “errno: 150” error message is really unhelpful. However:
You can get the actual error message by running SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and then looking for LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR in the output.
For example, this attempt to create a foreign key constraint:
CREATE TABLE t1
(id INTEGER);
CREATE TABLE t2
(t1_id INTEGER,
CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (t1_id) REFERENCES t1 (id));
fails with the error Can't create table 'test.t2' (errno: 150). That doesn’t tell anyone anything useful other than that it’s a foreign key problem. But run SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and it will say:
------------------------
LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR
------------------------
130811 23:36:38 Error in foreign key constraint of table test/t2:
FOREIGN KEY (t1_id) REFERENCES t1 (id)):
Cannot find an index in the referenced table where the
referenced columns appear as the first columns, or column types
in the table and the referenced table do not match for constraint.
It says that the problem is it can’t find an index. SHOW INDEX FROM t1 shows that there aren’t any indexes at all for table t1. Fix that by, say, defining a primary key on t1, and the foreign key constraint will be created successfully.

Make sure that the properties of the two fields you are trying to link with a constraint are exactly the same.
Often, the 'unsigned' property on an ID column will catch you out.
ALTER TABLE `dbname`.`tablename` CHANGE `fieldname` `fieldname` int(10) UNSIGNED NULL;

What's the current state of your database when you run this script? Is it completely empty? Your SQL runs fine for me when creating a database from scratch, but errno 150 usually has to do with dropping & recreating tables that are part of a foreign key. I'm getting the feeling you're not working with a 100% fresh and new database.
If you're erroring out when "source"-ing your SQL file, you should be able to run the command "SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS" from the MySQL prompt immediately after the "source" command to see more detailed error info.
You may want to check out the manual entry too:
If you re-create a table that was dropped, it must have a definition that conforms to the foreign key constraints referencing it. It must have the right column names and types, and it must have indexes on the referenced keys, as stated earlier. If these are not satisfied, MySQL returns error number 1005 and refers to error 150 in the error message. If MySQL reports an error number 1005 from a CREATE TABLE statement, and the error message refers to error 150, table creation failed because a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed.
— MySQL 5.1 reference manual.

For people who are viewing this thread with the same problem:
There are a lot of reasons for getting errors like this. For a fairly complete list of causes and solutions of foreign key errors in MySQL (including those discussed here), check out this link:
MySQL Foreign Key Errors and Errno 150

For others that find this SO entry via Google: Be sure that you aren't trying to do a SET NULL action on a foreign key (to be) column defined as "NOT NULL." That caused great frustration until I remembered to do a CHECK ENGINE INNODB STATUS.

Definitely it is not the case but I found this mistake pretty common and unobvious. The target of a FOREIGN KEY could be not PRIMARY KEY. Te answer which become useful for me is:
A FOREIGN KEY always must be pointed to a PRIMARY KEY true field of other table.
CREATE TABLE users(
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
username VARCHAR(40));
CREATE TABLE userroles(
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
user_id INT NOT NULL,
FOREIGN KEY(user_id) REFERENCES users(id));

As pointed by #andrewdotn the best way is to see the detailed error(SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS;) instead of just an error code.
One of the reasons could be that an index already exists with the same name, may be in another table. As a practice, I recommend prefixing table name before the index name to avoid such collisions. e.g. instead of idx_userId use idx_userActionMapping_userId.

Please make sure at first that
you are using InnoDB tables.
field for FOREIGN KEY has the same type and length (!) as source field.
I had the same trouble and I've fixed it. I had unsigned INT for one field and just integer for other field.

Helpful tip, use SHOW WARNINGS; after trying your CREATE query and you will receive the error as well as the more detailed warning:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Level | Code | Message |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------+
| Warning | 150 | Create table 'fakeDatabase/exampleTable' with foreign key constraint failed. There is no index in the referenced table where the referenced columns appear as the first columns.
|
| Error | 1005 | Can't create table 'exampleTable' (errno:150) |
+---------+------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------+
So in this case, time to re-create my table!

This is usually happening when you try to source file into existing database.
Drop all the tables first (or the DB itself).
And then source file with SET foreign_key_checks = 0; at the beginning and SET foreign_key_checks = 1; at the end.

I've found another reason this fails... case sensitive table names.
For this table definition
CREATE TABLE user (
userId int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
username varchar(30) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
This table definition works
CREATE TABLE product (
id int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
userId int,
FOREIGN KEY fkProductUser1(userId) REFERENCES **u**ser(userId)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
whereas this one fails
CREATE TABLE product (
id int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
userId int,
FOREIGN KEY fkProductUser1(userId) REFERENCES User(userId)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
The fact that it worked on Windows and failed on Unix took me a couple of hours to figure out. Hope that helps someone else.

MySQL Workbench 6.3 for Mac OS.
Problem: errno 150 on table X when trying to do Forward Engineering on a DB diagram, 20 out of 21 succeeded, 1 failed. If FKs on table X were deleted, the error moved to a different table that wasn't failing before.
Changed all tables engine to myISAM and it worked just fine.

Also worth checking that you aren't accidentally operating on the wrong database. This error will occur if the foreign table does not exist. Why does MySQL have to be so cryptic?

Make sure that the foreign keys are not listed as unique in the parent. I had this same problem and I solved it by demarcating it as not unique.

In my case it was due to the fact that the field that was a foreign key field had a too long name, ie. foreign key (some_other_table_with_long_name_id). Try sth shorter. Error message is a bit misleading in that case.
Also, as #Jon mentioned earlier - field definitions have to be the same (watch out for unsigned subtype).

(Side notes too big for a Comment)
There is no need for an AUTO_INCREMENT id in a mapping table; get rid of it.
Change the PRIMARY KEY to (role_id, role_group_id) (in either order). This will make accesses faster.
Since you probably want to map both directions, also add an INDEX with those two columns in the opposite order. (There is no need to make it UNIQUE.)
More tips: http://mysql.rjweb.org/doc.php/index_cookbook_mysql#speeding_up_wp_postmeta

When the foreign key constraint is based on varchar type, then in addition to the list provided by marv-el the target column must have an unique constraint.

execute below line before creating table :
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS option specifies whether or not to check foreign key constraints for InnoDB tables.
-- Specify to check foreign key constraints (this is the default)
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
 
-- Do not check foreign key constraints
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
When to Use :
Temporarily disabling referential constraints (set FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS to 0) is useful when you need to re-create the tables and load data in any parent-child order

I encountered the same problem, but I check find that I hadn't the parent table. So I just edit the parent migration in front of the child migration. Just do it.

Unable to add two foreign keys to a table

I have two tables as follow:
1st Table:
CREATE TABLE User (
User_ID VARCHAR(8)NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
User_Name VARCHAR (25) NOT NULL,
User_Gender CHAR (1) NOT NULL,
User_Position VARCHAR (10) NOT NULL,
);
2nd table:
CREATE TABLE Training (
Training_Code VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL Primary Key,
Training_Title VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
);
I am trying to create a table which has two foreign keys to join both of the previous tables:
CREATE TABLE Request (
User_ID VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL,
Training_Code VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL,
Request_Status INT(1) NOT NULL
);
When I am trying to set the foreign keys in the new table, the User_ID can be done successfully but the Training_Code cannot be set to foreign key due to the error:
ERROR 1215 (HY000): Cannot add foreign key constraint
As I searched for this problem, the reason for it, is that data type is not the same, or name is not the same.. but in my situation both are correct so could you tell me what is wrong here ?

You need an index for this column in table Request too:
Issue first
CREATE INDEX idx_training_code ON Request (Training_Code);
Then you should be successful creating the foreign key constraint with
ALTER TABLE Request
ADD CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY idx_training_code (Training_Code)
REFERENCES Training(Training_Code);
It worked for me. But I've got to say that it worked without create index too, as the documentation of Using FOREIGN KEY Constraints states:
MySQL requires indexes on foreign keys and referenced keys so that
foreign key checks can be fast and not require a table scan. In the
referencing table, there must be an index where the foreign key
columns are listed as the first columns in the same order. Such an
index is created on the referencing table automatically if it does not
exist. This index might be silently dropped later, if you create
another index that can be used to enforce the foreign key constraint.
index_name, if given, is used as described previously.
Emphasis by me. I don't know what's the issue in your case.
Demo
Explanation of the issue
The behavior mentioned in the question can be reproduced if the table Training is using the MyISAM storage engine. Then creating a foreign key referencing the table Training will produce the mentioned error.
If there's data in the table, then simple dropping of the table would not be the best solution. You can change the storage engine to InnoDB with
ALTER TABLE Training Engine=InnoDB;
Now you can successfully add the foreign key constraint.