#1071 - Specified key was too long; max key length

Question

When I executed the following command:

ALTER TABLE `mytable` ADD UNIQUE (
`column1` ,
`column2`
);

I got this error message:

#1071 - Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes

Information about column1 and column2:

column1 varchar(20) utf8_general_ci
column2  varchar(500) utf8_general_ci

I think varchar(20) only requires 21 bytes while varchar(500) only requires 501 bytes. So the total bytes are 522, less than 767. So why did I get the error message?

#1071 - Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes

Answer 1

Change CHARSET of the complaining index field to "latin1"
i.e. ALTER TABLE tbl CHANGE myfield myfield varchar(600) CHARACTER SET latin1 DEFAULT NULL;
latin1 takes one byte for one character instead of four

Answer 2

5 workaround:

The limit was raised in 5.7.7 (MariaDB 10.2.2?). And it can be increased with some work in 5.6 (10.1).

If you are hitting the limit because of trying to use CHARACTER SET utf8mb4. Then do one of the following (each has a drawback) to avoid the error:

⚈  Upgrade to 5.7.7 for 3072 byte limit -- your cloud may not provide this;
⚈  Change 255 to 191 on the VARCHAR -- you lose any values longer than 191 characters (unlikely?);
⚈  ALTER .. CONVERT TO utf8 -- you lose Emoji and some of Chinese;
⚈  Use a "prefix" index -- you lose some of the performance benefits.
⚈  Or... Stay with older version but perform 4 steps to raise the limit to 3072 bytes:

SET GLOBAL innodb_file_format=Barracuda;
SET GLOBAL innodb_file_per_table=1;
SET GLOBAL innodb_large_prefix=1;
logout & login (to get the global values);
ALTER TABLE tbl ROW_FORMAT=DYNAMIC;  -- (or COMPRESSED)

-- http://mysql.rjweb.org/doc.php/limits#767_limit_in_innodb_indexes

Answer 3

I found this query useful in detecting which columns had an index violating the max length:

SELECT
  c.TABLE_NAME As TableName,
  c.COLUMN_NAME AS ColumnName,
  c.DATA_TYPE AS DataType,
  c.CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH AS ColumnLength,
  s.INDEX_NAME AS IndexName
FROM information_schema.COLUMNS AS c
INNER JOIN information_schema.statistics AS s
  ON s.table_name = c.TABLE_NAME
 AND s.COLUMN_NAME = c.COLUMN_NAME 
WHERE c.TABLE_SCHEMA = DATABASE()
  AND c.CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH > 191 
  AND c.DATA_TYPE IN ('char', 'varchar', 'text')

Answer 4

Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes

You got that message because 1 byte equals 1 character only if you use the latin-1 character set. If you use utf8, each character will be considered 3 bytes when defining your key column. If you use utf8mb4, each character will be considered to be 4 bytes when defining your key column. Thus, you need to multiply your key field's character limit by, 1, 3, or 4 (in my example) to determine the number of bytes the key field is trying to allow. If you are using uft8mb4, you can only define 191 characters for a native, InnoDB, primary key field. Just don't breach 767 bytes.