MySQL Creating tables with Foreign Keys giving err

Question

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;

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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!

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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));

Answer 5

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?

Answer 6

(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