SQL Server 2008: The columns in table do not match an existing primary key or unique constraint

Question

I need to make some changes to a SQL Server 2008 database.

This requires the creation of a new table, and inserting a foreign key in the new table that references t

Answer 1

If you have data in your tables this could be the issue.

In my case I had some data in the Account table that I loaded at 3 pm, and some data in Contact table that I loaded at 3:10 pm, so Contact table had some values that weren't in my Account table yet.

I ended up deleting these values from the contact table and then managed to add a key without any problems.

Answer 2

If you have a composite key the order is important when creating a FK, and sometimes the order is not how it is displayed.

What I do is go to the Keys section of the table1 and select script primary key as create to clipboard and then create FK using the order as shown in script

Answer 3

If you still get that error after you have followed all advice from the above answers and everything looks right.

One way to fix it is by Removing your Primary keys for both tables, Save, Refresh, and add them again. Then try to add your relationship again.

Answer 4

This issue caught me out, I was adding the relationship on the wrong table. So if you're trying to add a relationship in table A to table B, try adding the relationship in table B to table A.

Answer 5

It means that the primary key in tblOne hasn't been properly declared - you need to go to tblOne and add the PRIMARY KEY constraint back onto it.

If you're sure that tblOne does have a PRIMARY KEY constraint, then maybe there are multiple tblOne tables in your DB, belonging to different schemas, and your references clause in your FK constraint is picking the wrong one.

If there's a composite key (which your comment would indicate), then you have to include both columns in your foreign key reference also. Note that a table can't have multiple primary keys - but if it has a composite key, you'll see a key symbol next to each column that is part of the primary key.