Skip to content

A refused delete now shows a sentence, not the SQL #152

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
mastacontrola merged 2 commits into from
Aug 29, 2026
Merged

A refused delete now shows a sentence, not the SQL #152

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
2 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
9989441
A refused delete now shows a sentence, not the SQL
mastacontrola Aug 29, 2026
554a821
Correct where the API returns the message
mastacontrola Aug 29, 2026
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
39 changes: 28 additions & 11 deletions docs/kb/reference/referential-integrity.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -121,22 +121,39 @@ the next user created could inherit someone else's sign-in binding.

## What a refused delete looks like

The refusal comes from the database, and FOG surfaces the database's own
message. It names the constraint, and the constraint is named after the table
and column that is still pointing at the record:
The refusal comes from the database, but what you see is a sentence naming
what is still using the record:

```
Cannot delete or update a parent row: a foreign key constraint fails
(`fog`.`nfsGroupMembers`, CONSTRAINT `fk_nfsGroupMembers_ngmGroupID`
FOREIGN KEY (`ngmGroupID`) REFERENCES `nfsGroups` (`ngID`))
Cannot delete this storage group because a location still refers to it.
Reassign or remove it first.
```

Read it as: **`nfsGroupMembers` still has rows in this group** — a storage
node has not been moved out. `fk_<table>_<column>` always identifies what is
holding the record.
Move or delete the thing it names, then try the delete again. **Nothing was
changed** — a refused delete leaves the record and everything pointing at it
exactly as they were.

Nothing was changed when a delete is refused. Clear the thing named in the
message and try again.
Over the API the same message comes back as **HTTP 409 Conflict**, with the
sentence as the response body. 409 rather than a generic error is
deliberate: it means the request itself was fine and will work once the
blocking record is dealt with, so a script can tell "fix this and retry"
apart from "this request was wrong".

>[!note]
>Occasionally the message is the database's own instead:
>
>```
>Cannot delete or update a parent row: a foreign key constraint fails
>(`fog`.`nfsGroupMembers`, CONSTRAINT `fk_nfsGroupMembers_ngmGroupID`
>FOREIGN KEY (`ngmGroupID`) REFERENCES `nfsGroups` (`ngID`))
>```
>
>That happens when the rule involved is one FOG does not have a plain-English
>description for — a constraint added by hand, or left by an older release.
>The delete is still refused and nothing is changed; only the wording is
>less helpful. Read it as **`nfsGroupMembers` still has rows in this group**:
>the constraint name is always `fk_<table>_<column>`, and that table and
>column are what is holding the record.

## What happens on upgrade

Expand Down