ms-access could not delete - mysql

ms-access is connecting to a local mysql database
the following code returns an error:
Public Function run_sql(strSql As String)
On Error GoTo lblError
CurrentDb.Execute strSql, dbFailOnError
lblExit:
Exit Function
lblError:
MsgBox Err.Number & ": " & Err.Description
Resume lblExit
End Function
strSql = "DELETE FROM tblUsersSubjects WHERE user_id=2007;" - i ran this statement it works perfectly, but access is giving me this error: 3086: Could not delete from specified tables
what is the cause of this error?
table structure is:
CREATE TABLE `tbluserssubjects` (
`user_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`subject_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`other` varchar(50) default NULL
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
please note that i AM able perform the needed delete operation my using the shell, instead of access


From within Access can you open your linked table, tblUsersSubjects, in datasheet view and edit or delete in datasheet view? If not, Access may be treating the connection to your MySql table as read-only. Try deleting the link (in Access; not the actual table in MySql). Then re-link the table in Access and make sure to tell Access which field (or combination of fields) to use as a primary key. If Access isn't aware of a linked table's primary key, the link will be read-only.
After off-line discussions with Alex, I want to add to this answer:
Access originally didn't recognize what to
use as a primary key, so your linked table was read-only from the Access side. I'll guess that was because your CREATE TABLE statement didn't
include a primary key constraint. But I don't actually know the
details of how Access automagically identifies the primary key when linking to an
external table. Perhaps, in the absence of an explicitly defined
primary key, it might look for a field with Not Null and Unique
constraints. But the CREATE TABLE statement didn't include any unique constraints on your MySql
table either.
So when Access is not able to automagically guess the external table's primary key, you must tell it which field (or fields) to use as the primary key ... unless you want the linked table to be read-only from Access.


Is the table in Access or MySql? If it's in MySql it's likely that you don't have the proper permissions to edit table data. Check your connection string that points to the MySql table and make sure that whoever you're connecting as has delete permissions on that table.
Also - does this table have any foreign key relationships to other tables? Perhaps you are trying to delete a record that would cause a violation to some other table's primary key.


Maybe its a case-sensitive issue?
You typed: "tbluserssubjects" for the table structure, but in the query you typed "tblUsersSubjects" (capital U and S)

Related

mysql error 150 with INNODB [duplicate]

I am trying to import a .sql file and its failing on creating tables.
Here's the query that fails:
CREATE TABLE `data` (
`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`value` varchar(15) NOT NULL,
UNIQUE KEY `id` (`id`,`name`),
CONSTRAINT `data_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`id`) REFERENCES `keywords` (`id`) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
I exported the .sql from the same database, I dropped all the tables and now im trying to import it, why is it failing?
MySQL: Can't create table './dbname/data.frm' (errno: 150)

From the MySQL - FOREIGN KEY Constraints Documentation:
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 correct column names and types, and it must have indexes on the referenced keys, as stated earlier. If these are not satisfied, MySQL returns Error 1005 and refers to Error 150 in the error message, which means that a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed. Similarly, if an ALTER TABLE fails due to Error 150, this means that a foreign key definition would be incorrectly formed for the altered table.

Error 150 means you have a problem with your foreign key. Possibly the key on the foreign table isn't the exact same type?

You can get the actual error message by running SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and then looking for LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR in the output.
Source: answer from another user in a similar question

Data types must match exactly. If you are dealing with varchar types, the tables must use the same collation.

I think all these answers while correct are misleading to the question.
The actual answer is this before you start a restore, if you're restoring a dump file with foreign keys:
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;
because naturally the restore will be creating some constraints before the foreign table even exists.

In some cases, you may encounter this error message if there are different engines between the relating tables. For example, a table may be using InnoDB while the other uses MyISAM. Both need to be same

Error no. 150 means a foreign key constraint failure. You are probably creating this table before the table the foreign key depends on (table keywords). Create that table first and it should work fine.
If it doesn't, remove the foreign key statement and add it after the table is created - you will get a more meaningful error message about the specific constraint failure.

There are quite a few things that can cause errno 150, so for people searching this topic, here is what I think is a close to exhaustive list (source Causes of Errno 150):
For errno 150 or errno 121, simply typing in SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS, there is a section called "LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR". Under that it will give you a very helpful error message, which typically will tell you right away what is the matter. You need SUPER privileges to run it, so if you don't have that, you'll just have to test out the following scenarios.
1) Data Types Don't Match: The types of the columns have to be the same
2) Parent Columns Not Indexed (Or Indexed in Wrong Order)
3) Column Collations Don't Match
4) Using SET NULL on a NOT NULL Column
5) Table Collations Don't Match: even if the column collations match, on some MySQL versions this can be a problem.
6) Parent Column Doesn't Actually Exist In Parent Table. Check spelling (and perhaps a space at the beginning or end of column)
7) One of the indexes on one of the columns is incomplete, or the column is too long for a complete index. Note that MySQL (unless you tweak it) has a maximum single column key length of 767 bytes (this corresponds to a varchar(255) UTF column)
In case you get an errno 121, here are a couple of causes:
1) The constraint name you chose is already taken
2) On some systems if there is a case difference in your statement and table names. This can bite you if you go from one server to another that have different case handling rules.

Sometimes MySQL is just super stupid - i can understand the reason cause of foreign-keys.. but in my case, i have just dropped the whole database, and i still get the error... why? i mean, there is no database anymore... and the sql-user i'm using has no access to any other db's on the server... i mean, the server is "empty" for the current user and i still get this error? Sorry but i guess MySQL is lying to me... but i can deal with it :) Just add these two lines of SQL around your fucky statement:
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
# some code that gives you errno: 150
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
Now the sql should be executed... If you really have a foreign-key problem, it would show up to you by the line where you will enable the checks again - this will fail then.. but my server is just quiet :)

usually, the mismatch between foreign key & primary key causes the
error:150.
The foreign key must have the same datatype as the primary key. Also, if the primary key is unsigned then the foreign key must also be unsigned.

I had same issue. It was related to table's column Collation and Character Set.
Make sure Character Set and Collation must be same for both columns on two tables. If you want to set a foreign key on that.
Example- If you put foreign key on userID column of userImage table referencing userID column of users table.Then Collation must be same that is utf8_general_ci and Character set utf8 for both columns of tables. Generally when you create a table mysql takes these two configuration from server settings.

After cruising through the answers above, and experimenting a bit, this is an effective way to solve Foreign Key errors in MySQL (1005 - error 150).
For the foreign key to be properly created, all MySQL asks for is:
All referenced keys MUST have either PRIMARY or UNIQUE index.
Referencing Column again MUST have identical data type to the Referenced column.
Satisfy these requirements and all will be well.

I experienced this error when have ported Windows application to Linux. In Windows, database table names are case-insensitive, and in Linux they are case-sensitive, probably because of file system difference. So, on Windows table Table1 is the same as table1, and in REFERENCES both table1 and Table1 works. On Linux, when application used table1 instead of Table1 when it created database structure I saw error #150; when I made correct character case in Table1 references, it started to work on Linux too. So, if nothing else helps, make you sure that in REFERENCES you use correct character case in table name when you on Linux.

Change the engines of your tables, only innoDB supports foreign keys

If the PK table is created in one CHARSET and then you create FK table in another CHARSET..then also you might get this error...I too got this error but after changing the charset to PK charset then it got executed without errors
create table users
(
------------
-------------
)DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
create table Emp
(
---------
---------
---------
FOREIGN KEY (userid) REFERENCES users(id) on update cascade on delete cascade)ENGINE=InnoDB, DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

This error can occur if two tables have a reference, for example, one table is Student and another table is Education, and we want the Education table to have a foreign key reference of Student table. In this instance the column data type for both tables should be same, otherwise it will generate an error.

In most of the cases the problem is because of the ENGINE dIfference .If the parent is created by InnoDB then the referenced tables supposed to be created by MyISAM & vice versa

In my case. I had problems with engine and charset because my Hosting server change settings and my new tables was MyISAM but my old tables are InnoDB. Just i changed.

Please make sure both your primary key column and referenced column have the same data types and attributes (unsigned, binary, unsigned zerofill etc).

A real edge case is where you have used an MySQL tool, (Sequel Pro in my case) to rename a database. Then created a database with the same name.
This kept foreign key constraints to the same database name, so the renamed database (e.g. my_db_renamed) had foreign key constraints in the newly created database (my_db)
Not sure if this is a bug in Sequel Pro, or if some use case requires this behaviour, but it cost me best part of a morning :/

The column of PARENT table to which you are referring to from child table has to be unique. If it is not, cause an error no 150.

I had the same error. In my case the reason for the error was that I had a ON DELETE SET NULL statement in the constraint while the field on which I put the constraint in its definition had a NOT NULL statement. Allowing NULL in the field solved the problem.

I faced this kind of issue while creating DB from the textfile.
mysql -uroot -padmin < E:\important\sampdb\createdb.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\create_student.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\create_absence.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\insert_student.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\insert_absence.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\load_student.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\load_absence.sql
I just wrote the above lines in Create.batand run the bat file.
My mistake is in the sequence order of execution in my sql files. I tried to create table with primary key and also foreign key. While its running it will search for the reference table but tables are not there.
So it will return those kind of error.
If you creating tables with foreign key then check the reference
tables were present or not. And also check the name of the reference
tables and fields.

I had a similar problem but mine was because i was adding a new field to an existing table that had data , and the new field was referencing another field from the parent table and also had the Defination of NOT NULL and without any DEFAULT VALUES. - I found out the reason things were not working was because
My new field needed to autofill the blank fields with a value from the parent table on each record, before the constraint could be applied. Every time the constraint is applied it needs to leave the Integrity of the table data intact. Implementing the Constraint (Foreign Key) yet there were some database records that did not have the values from the parent table would mean the data is corrupt so MySQL would NEVER ENFORCE YOUR CONSTRAINT
It is important to remember that under normal circumstances if you planned your database well ahead of time, and implemented constraints before data insertion this particular scenario would be avoided
The easier Approach to avoid this gotcha is to
Save your database tables data
Truncate the table data (and table artifacts i.e indexes etc)
Apply the Constraints
Import Your Data
I Hope this helps someone

Create the table without foreign key, then set the foreign key separately.

Perhaps this will help? The definition of the primary key column should be exactly the same as the foreign key column.

Make sure that the all tables can support foreign key - InnoDB engine

I had a similar problem when dumping a Django mysql database with a single table. I was able to fix the problem by dumping the database to a text file, moving the table in question to the end of the file using emacs and importing the modified sql dump file into the new instance.
HTH Uwe

I've corrected the problem by making the variable accept null
ALTER TABLE `ajout_norme`
CHANGE `type_norme_code` `type_norme_code` VARCHAR( 2 ) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NULL

I got the same problem when executing a series of MySQL commands. Mine occurs during creating a table when referencing a foreign key to other table which was not created yet. It's the sequence of table existence before referencing.
The solution: Create the parent tables first before creating a child table which has a foreign key.

1005, "Can't create table 'test.addr_count' (errno: 150)" [duplicate]

I am trying to import a .sql file and its failing on creating tables.
Here's the query that fails:
CREATE TABLE `data` (
`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`value` varchar(15) NOT NULL,
UNIQUE KEY `id` (`id`,`name`),
CONSTRAINT `data_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`id`) REFERENCES `keywords` (`id`) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
I exported the .sql from the same database, I dropped all the tables and now im trying to import it, why is it failing?
MySQL: Can't create table './dbname/data.frm' (errno: 150)

From the MySQL - FOREIGN KEY Constraints Documentation:
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 correct column names and types, and it must have indexes on the referenced keys, as stated earlier. If these are not satisfied, MySQL returns Error 1005 and refers to Error 150 in the error message, which means that a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed. Similarly, if an ALTER TABLE fails due to Error 150, this means that a foreign key definition would be incorrectly formed for the altered table.

Error 150 means you have a problem with your foreign key. Possibly the key on the foreign table isn't the exact same type?

You can get the actual error message by running SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and then looking for LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR in the output.
Source: answer from another user in a similar question

Data types must match exactly. If you are dealing with varchar types, the tables must use the same collation.

I think all these answers while correct are misleading to the question.
The actual answer is this before you start a restore, if you're restoring a dump file with foreign keys:
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;
because naturally the restore will be creating some constraints before the foreign table even exists.

In some cases, you may encounter this error message if there are different engines between the relating tables. For example, a table may be using InnoDB while the other uses MyISAM. Both need to be same

Error no. 150 means a foreign key constraint failure. You are probably creating this table before the table the foreign key depends on (table keywords). Create that table first and it should work fine.
If it doesn't, remove the foreign key statement and add it after the table is created - you will get a more meaningful error message about the specific constraint failure.

There are quite a few things that can cause errno 150, so for people searching this topic, here is what I think is a close to exhaustive list (source Causes of Errno 150):
For errno 150 or errno 121, simply typing in SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS, there is a section called "LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR". Under that it will give you a very helpful error message, which typically will tell you right away what is the matter. You need SUPER privileges to run it, so if you don't have that, you'll just have to test out the following scenarios.
1) Data Types Don't Match: The types of the columns have to be the same
2) Parent Columns Not Indexed (Or Indexed in Wrong Order)
3) Column Collations Don't Match
4) Using SET NULL on a NOT NULL Column
5) Table Collations Don't Match: even if the column collations match, on some MySQL versions this can be a problem.
6) Parent Column Doesn't Actually Exist In Parent Table. Check spelling (and perhaps a space at the beginning or end of column)
7) One of the indexes on one of the columns is incomplete, or the column is too long for a complete index. Note that MySQL (unless you tweak it) has a maximum single column key length of 767 bytes (this corresponds to a varchar(255) UTF column)
In case you get an errno 121, here are a couple of causes:
1) The constraint name you chose is already taken
2) On some systems if there is a case difference in your statement and table names. This can bite you if you go from one server to another that have different case handling rules.

Sometimes MySQL is just super stupid - i can understand the reason cause of foreign-keys.. but in my case, i have just dropped the whole database, and i still get the error... why? i mean, there is no database anymore... and the sql-user i'm using has no access to any other db's on the server... i mean, the server is "empty" for the current user and i still get this error? Sorry but i guess MySQL is lying to me... but i can deal with it :) Just add these two lines of SQL around your fucky statement:
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
# some code that gives you errno: 150
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
Now the sql should be executed... If you really have a foreign-key problem, it would show up to you by the line where you will enable the checks again - this will fail then.. but my server is just quiet :)

usually, the mismatch between foreign key & primary key causes the
error:150.
The foreign key must have the same datatype as the primary key. Also, if the primary key is unsigned then the foreign key must also be unsigned.

I had same issue. It was related to table's column Collation and Character Set.
Make sure Character Set and Collation must be same for both columns on two tables. If you want to set a foreign key on that.
Example- If you put foreign key on userID column of userImage table referencing userID column of users table.Then Collation must be same that is utf8_general_ci and Character set utf8 for both columns of tables. Generally when you create a table mysql takes these two configuration from server settings.

After cruising through the answers above, and experimenting a bit, this is an effective way to solve Foreign Key errors in MySQL (1005 - error 150).
For the foreign key to be properly created, all MySQL asks for is:
All referenced keys MUST have either PRIMARY or UNIQUE index.
Referencing Column again MUST have identical data type to the Referenced column.
Satisfy these requirements and all will be well.

I experienced this error when have ported Windows application to Linux. In Windows, database table names are case-insensitive, and in Linux they are case-sensitive, probably because of file system difference. So, on Windows table Table1 is the same as table1, and in REFERENCES both table1 and Table1 works. On Linux, when application used table1 instead of Table1 when it created database structure I saw error #150; when I made correct character case in Table1 references, it started to work on Linux too. So, if nothing else helps, make you sure that in REFERENCES you use correct character case in table name when you on Linux.

Change the engines of your tables, only innoDB supports foreign keys

If the PK table is created in one CHARSET and then you create FK table in another CHARSET..then also you might get this error...I too got this error but after changing the charset to PK charset then it got executed without errors
create table users
(
------------
-------------
)DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
create table Emp
(
---------
---------
---------
FOREIGN KEY (userid) REFERENCES users(id) on update cascade on delete cascade)ENGINE=InnoDB, DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

This error can occur if two tables have a reference, for example, one table is Student and another table is Education, and we want the Education table to have a foreign key reference of Student table. In this instance the column data type for both tables should be same, otherwise it will generate an error.

In most of the cases the problem is because of the ENGINE dIfference .If the parent is created by InnoDB then the referenced tables supposed to be created by MyISAM & vice versa

In my case. I had problems with engine and charset because my Hosting server change settings and my new tables was MyISAM but my old tables are InnoDB. Just i changed.

Please make sure both your primary key column and referenced column have the same data types and attributes (unsigned, binary, unsigned zerofill etc).

A real edge case is where you have used an MySQL tool, (Sequel Pro in my case) to rename a database. Then created a database with the same name.
This kept foreign key constraints to the same database name, so the renamed database (e.g. my_db_renamed) had foreign key constraints in the newly created database (my_db)
Not sure if this is a bug in Sequel Pro, or if some use case requires this behaviour, but it cost me best part of a morning :/

The column of PARENT table to which you are referring to from child table has to be unique. If it is not, cause an error no 150.

I had the same error. In my case the reason for the error was that I had a ON DELETE SET NULL statement in the constraint while the field on which I put the constraint in its definition had a NOT NULL statement. Allowing NULL in the field solved the problem.

I faced this kind of issue while creating DB from the textfile.
mysql -uroot -padmin < E:\important\sampdb\createdb.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\create_student.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\create_absence.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\insert_student.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\insert_absence.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\load_student.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\load_absence.sql
I just wrote the above lines in Create.batand run the bat file.
My mistake is in the sequence order of execution in my sql files. I tried to create table with primary key and also foreign key. While its running it will search for the reference table but tables are not there.
So it will return those kind of error.
If you creating tables with foreign key then check the reference
tables were present or not. And also check the name of the reference
tables and fields.

I had a similar problem but mine was because i was adding a new field to an existing table that had data , and the new field was referencing another field from the parent table and also had the Defination of NOT NULL and without any DEFAULT VALUES. - I found out the reason things were not working was because
My new field needed to autofill the blank fields with a value from the parent table on each record, before the constraint could be applied. Every time the constraint is applied it needs to leave the Integrity of the table data intact. Implementing the Constraint (Foreign Key) yet there were some database records that did not have the values from the parent table would mean the data is corrupt so MySQL would NEVER ENFORCE YOUR CONSTRAINT
It is important to remember that under normal circumstances if you planned your database well ahead of time, and implemented constraints before data insertion this particular scenario would be avoided
The easier Approach to avoid this gotcha is to
Save your database tables data
Truncate the table data (and table artifacts i.e indexes etc)
Apply the Constraints
Import Your Data
I Hope this helps someone

Create the table without foreign key, then set the foreign key separately.

Perhaps this will help? The definition of the primary key column should be exactly the same as the foreign key column.

Make sure that the all tables can support foreign key - InnoDB engine

I had a similar problem when dumping a Django mysql database with a single table. I was able to fix the problem by dumping the database to a text file, moving the table in question to the end of the file using emacs and importing the modified sql dump file into the new instance.
HTH Uwe

I've corrected the problem by making the variable accept null
ALTER TABLE `ajout_norme`
CHANGE `type_norme_code` `type_norme_code` VARCHAR( 2 ) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NULL

I got the same problem when executing a series of MySQL commands. Mine occurs during creating a table when referencing a foreign key to other table which was not created yet. It's the sequence of table existence before referencing.
The solution: Create the parent tables first before creating a child table which has a foreign key.

MySQL: Can't create table (errno: 150)

I am trying to import a .sql file and its failing on creating tables.
Here's the query that fails:
CREATE TABLE `data` (
`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`value` varchar(15) NOT NULL,
UNIQUE KEY `id` (`id`,`name`),
CONSTRAINT `data_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`id`) REFERENCES `keywords` (`id`) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
I exported the .sql from the same database, I dropped all the tables and now im trying to import it, why is it failing?
MySQL: Can't create table './dbname/data.frm' (errno: 150)

From the MySQL - FOREIGN KEY Constraints Documentation:
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 correct column names and types, and it must have indexes on the referenced keys, as stated earlier. If these are not satisfied, MySQL returns Error 1005 and refers to Error 150 in the error message, which means that a foreign key constraint was not correctly formed. Similarly, if an ALTER TABLE fails due to Error 150, this means that a foreign key definition would be incorrectly formed for the altered table.

Error 150 means you have a problem with your foreign key. Possibly the key on the foreign table isn't the exact same type?

You can get the actual error message by running SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; and then looking for LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR in the output.
Source: answer from another user in a similar question

Data types must match exactly. If you are dealing with varchar types, the tables must use the same collation.

I think all these answers while correct are misleading to the question.
The actual answer is this before you start a restore, if you're restoring a dump file with foreign keys:
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;
because naturally the restore will be creating some constraints before the foreign table even exists.

In some cases, you may encounter this error message if there are different engines between the relating tables. For example, a table may be using InnoDB while the other uses MyISAM. Both need to be same

Error no. 150 means a foreign key constraint failure. You are probably creating this table before the table the foreign key depends on (table keywords). Create that table first and it should work fine.
If it doesn't, remove the foreign key statement and add it after the table is created - you will get a more meaningful error message about the specific constraint failure.

There are quite a few things that can cause errno 150, so for people searching this topic, here is what I think is a close to exhaustive list (source Causes of Errno 150):
For errno 150 or errno 121, simply typing in SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS, there is a section called "LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR". Under that it will give you a very helpful error message, which typically will tell you right away what is the matter. You need SUPER privileges to run it, so if you don't have that, you'll just have to test out the following scenarios.
1) Data Types Don't Match: The types of the columns have to be the same
2) Parent Columns Not Indexed (Or Indexed in Wrong Order)
3) Column Collations Don't Match
4) Using SET NULL on a NOT NULL Column
5) Table Collations Don't Match: even if the column collations match, on some MySQL versions this can be a problem.
6) Parent Column Doesn't Actually Exist In Parent Table. Check spelling (and perhaps a space at the beginning or end of column)
7) One of the indexes on one of the columns is incomplete, or the column is too long for a complete index. Note that MySQL (unless you tweak it) has a maximum single column key length of 767 bytes (this corresponds to a varchar(255) UTF column)
In case you get an errno 121, here are a couple of causes:
1) The constraint name you chose is already taken
2) On some systems if there is a case difference in your statement and table names. This can bite you if you go from one server to another that have different case handling rules.

Sometimes MySQL is just super stupid - i can understand the reason cause of foreign-keys.. but in my case, i have just dropped the whole database, and i still get the error... why? i mean, there is no database anymore... and the sql-user i'm using has no access to any other db's on the server... i mean, the server is "empty" for the current user and i still get this error? Sorry but i guess MySQL is lying to me... but i can deal with it :) Just add these two lines of SQL around your fucky statement:
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
# some code that gives you errno: 150
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
Now the sql should be executed... If you really have a foreign-key problem, it would show up to you by the line where you will enable the checks again - this will fail then.. but my server is just quiet :)

usually, the mismatch between foreign key & primary key causes the
error:150.
The foreign key must have the same datatype as the primary key. Also, if the primary key is unsigned then the foreign key must also be unsigned.

I had same issue. It was related to table's column Collation and Character Set.
Make sure Character Set and Collation must be same for both columns on two tables. If you want to set a foreign key on that.
Example- If you put foreign key on userID column of userImage table referencing userID column of users table.Then Collation must be same that is utf8_general_ci and Character set utf8 for both columns of tables. Generally when you create a table mysql takes these two configuration from server settings.

After cruising through the answers above, and experimenting a bit, this is an effective way to solve Foreign Key errors in MySQL (1005 - error 150).
For the foreign key to be properly created, all MySQL asks for is:
All referenced keys MUST have either PRIMARY or UNIQUE index.
Referencing Column again MUST have identical data type to the Referenced column.
Satisfy these requirements and all will be well.

I experienced this error when have ported Windows application to Linux. In Windows, database table names are case-insensitive, and in Linux they are case-sensitive, probably because of file system difference. So, on Windows table Table1 is the same as table1, and in REFERENCES both table1 and Table1 works. On Linux, when application used table1 instead of Table1 when it created database structure I saw error #150; when I made correct character case in Table1 references, it started to work on Linux too. So, if nothing else helps, make you sure that in REFERENCES you use correct character case in table name when you on Linux.

Change the engines of your tables, only innoDB supports foreign keys

If the PK table is created in one CHARSET and then you create FK table in another CHARSET..then also you might get this error...I too got this error but after changing the charset to PK charset then it got executed without errors
create table users
(
------------
-------------
)DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
create table Emp
(
---------
---------
---------
FOREIGN KEY (userid) REFERENCES users(id) on update cascade on delete cascade)ENGINE=InnoDB, DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

This error can occur if two tables have a reference, for example, one table is Student and another table is Education, and we want the Education table to have a foreign key reference of Student table. In this instance the column data type for both tables should be same, otherwise it will generate an error.

In most of the cases the problem is because of the ENGINE dIfference .If the parent is created by InnoDB then the referenced tables supposed to be created by MyISAM & vice versa

In my case. I had problems with engine and charset because my Hosting server change settings and my new tables was MyISAM but my old tables are InnoDB. Just i changed.

Please make sure both your primary key column and referenced column have the same data types and attributes (unsigned, binary, unsigned zerofill etc).

A real edge case is where you have used an MySQL tool, (Sequel Pro in my case) to rename a database. Then created a database with the same name.
This kept foreign key constraints to the same database name, so the renamed database (e.g. my_db_renamed) had foreign key constraints in the newly created database (my_db)
Not sure if this is a bug in Sequel Pro, or if some use case requires this behaviour, but it cost me best part of a morning :/

The column of PARENT table to which you are referring to from child table has to be unique. If it is not, cause an error no 150.

I had the same error. In my case the reason for the error was that I had a ON DELETE SET NULL statement in the constraint while the field on which I put the constraint in its definition had a NOT NULL statement. Allowing NULL in the field solved the problem.

I faced this kind of issue while creating DB from the textfile.
mysql -uroot -padmin < E:\important\sampdb\createdb.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\create_student.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\create_absence.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\insert_student.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\insert_absence.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\load_student.sql
mysql -uroot -padmin sampdb < E:\important\sampdb\load_absence.sql
I just wrote the above lines in Create.batand run the bat file.
My mistake is in the sequence order of execution in my sql files. I tried to create table with primary key and also foreign key. While its running it will search for the reference table but tables are not there.
So it will return those kind of error.
If you creating tables with foreign key then check the reference
tables were present or not. And also check the name of the reference
tables and fields.

I had a similar problem but mine was because i was adding a new field to an existing table that had data , and the new field was referencing another field from the parent table and also had the Defination of NOT NULL and without any DEFAULT VALUES. - I found out the reason things were not working was because
My new field needed to autofill the blank fields with a value from the parent table on each record, before the constraint could be applied. Every time the constraint is applied it needs to leave the Integrity of the table data intact. Implementing the Constraint (Foreign Key) yet there were some database records that did not have the values from the parent table would mean the data is corrupt so MySQL would NEVER ENFORCE YOUR CONSTRAINT
It is important to remember that under normal circumstances if you planned your database well ahead of time, and implemented constraints before data insertion this particular scenario would be avoided
The easier Approach to avoid this gotcha is to
Save your database tables data
Truncate the table data (and table artifacts i.e indexes etc)
Apply the Constraints
Import Your Data
I Hope this helps someone

Create the table without foreign key, then set the foreign key separately.

Perhaps this will help? The definition of the primary key column should be exactly the same as the foreign key column.

Make sure that the all tables can support foreign key - InnoDB engine

I had a similar problem when dumping a Django mysql database with a single table. I was able to fix the problem by dumping the database to a text file, moving the table in question to the end of the file using emacs and importing the modified sql dump file into the new instance.
HTH Uwe

I've corrected the problem by making the variable accept null
ALTER TABLE `ajout_norme`
CHANGE `type_norme_code` `type_norme_code` VARCHAR( 2 ) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NULL

I got the same problem when executing a series of MySQL commands. Mine occurs during creating a table when referencing a foreign key to other table which was not created yet. It's the sequence of table existence before referencing.
The solution: Create the parent tables first before creating a child table which has a foreign key.

Unique, Non-Required Column in SQL Server 2008

Using SQL Server 2008, I have a requirement that email addresses in my user table must be unique, but email addresses are not required in my app. I've tried to make email addresses required, but I just cannot get the customer to budge on this one. What is the best method to create this constraint? If I add a constraint, what does the constraint look like? If I add a before insert trigger, what does that look like?
This application will be running on a multi-server web farm, and there are multiple points of entry. An application-level lock() { } is not a great option. I'm doing a select and verifying that the email doesn't exist from code right before performing the insert operation to give immediate feedback to the user. However, I would really like a database-level solution here. Just in case.
I'm using an ORM (NHibernate with AutoMapping), so I'd rather not insert or update records with a stored procedure.

Use an unique filtered index:
create table Foo (
Id int not null identity(1,1) primary key
, Name varchar(256) null
, Address varchar(max) null
, Email varchar(256) null);
create index ndxFooEmail unique on Foo(Email)
where Email is not null;
This is a sure-shot 100% bullet proof way to guarantee uniqueness of an optional value. The uniqueness will be enforced in the database server, your ORM/DAL does not need to worry with it, simply handle the error if the unique constraint is violated rather than try to duplicate the constraint in the ORM/DAL (is not really possible to do it correctly under concurrency).
See Filtered Index Design Guidelines for more details about SQL Server 2008 filtered indexes.

violation of primary key constraint .Cannot insert duplicate key in object using ADO

we are working on a users apllication using Access2003(VBA) as software language and SQL Server 2005 as database.
We are using ADO method and we encounter a problem.
when users create new record in a ADO Screen and they want to save the record after implementing it they receive this error :
error -2147217873 violation of primary key constraint 'PK_ '.Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'Pk_...'
Any help will be appreciated
Thanks in advance

The problem occures since you can't have two primary keys with the same value.
If you are using Ints as primary key, remember to put auto-increment on it.
If you are using GUID as primary key, you might forget to set the guid to sometheing else than the default empty guid, and there by trying to insert and empty guid twice.

Are you trying to insert a new record with the primary key field having a value that is already in the database. The primary key field must always contain unique values.

Check witch columnt is your PrimaryKey. If you are trying to insert value that already exist then you are getting that error.

you should create your PK value either from your code or on the SQL side. On the SQL side, when creating your database, you have to indicate that default value for "myPrimaryKey" field is uniqueIdentifier, while from code, you could have something like
myRecordset.fields("myPrimaryKey") = stGuidGen()
(check here for the stGuidGen function)
There are some pros and cons to each method. By implementing the SQL method, you do not have to care about generating PKs anymore. By doing it through code, you can store the newly generated value without having to requery the database, and reuse it immediatly in your code, and this can be very useful.

get the property of your primary key column and set the identity property to YES