The alter table statement conflicted with the foreign key constraint.

Question

Problem :

I am very new to the Sql Server. Currently I want to add the new foreign key to the already existing table in this table there is existing data in a column where I want to make the change.

I tried this approach on a table for a column where data is present and also for a column data does not exist. I have noticed where there is no data it works fine. Please find below the error message.

“The alter table statement conflicted with the foreign key constraint”.

Can someone guide me in fixing this foreign key error?

Answer 1

I think you are facing above error because you may have the orphaned records in your table. The orphaned record is the record which is present in the child table without having the corresponding parent record in its parent table.

To fix the problem you need to cleanup your data.To cleanup your data you must first find the records in your child table which do not have the corresponding parent record in parent table. After that you need to either delete or update the required records in your child table or you can add your missing parent records in to your required parent table. Afterwar doing this exercise you should be able to create your foreign key constraint.