EF 5, update object gives “A referential integrity constraint violation occurred”

Question

In my model I\'ve got a bunch of domain objects. Now I\'m having a problem when trying to update a User-object. The User has a foreignkey relation to the Role object. When I upd

Answer 1

For the benefit of searchers, I was getting the same error but found a quick fix.

I was loading a class with an FK relationship into the view to be edited. Even with no changes, the FK was being dropped and this error occurred. The fix was to include a hidden field into the Razor view that contained the FK. e.g.

@Html.HiddenFor(model => model.ReleaseInfo.BookId)

Code copied below so you can check if your situation is similar.

Controller Actions

public ActionResult Edit(int id = 0)
        {
            Book book = db.Books.Find(id);
            if (book == null)
            {
                return HttpNotFound();
            }
            ViewBag.Id = new SelectList(db.ReleaseInfo, "BookId", "BookId", book.Id);
            return View(book);
        }

        //
        // POST: /Book/Edit/5

        [HttpPost]
        [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
        public ActionResult Edit(Book book)
        {
            if (ModelState.IsValid)
            {
                db.Entry(book).State = EntityState.Modified;

                db.SaveChanges();
                return RedirectToAction("Index");
            }
            ViewBag.Id = new SelectList(db.ReleaseInfo, "BookId", "BookId", book.Id);
            return View(book);
        }

Relationships

Book.cs

  public class Book
    {
        [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
        public int Id { get; set; }

        [Required]
        [MaxLength(100)]
        public string Title { get; set; }


        public virtual ICollection<Author> Authors { get; set; }


        public virtual ReleaseInfo ReleaseInfo { get; set; }


        public virtual ICollection<ReRelease> ReReleases { get; set; }

    }

ReleaseInfo.cs

public class ReleaseInfo
    {
        // One to one relationship uses Books Key as Key.
        [Key, ForeignKey("Book")]
        public int BookId { get; set; }

        [DataType(DataType.Date)]
        [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:yyyy-MM-dd}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)]
        public DateTime ReleaseDate { get; set; }


        public virtual Book Book { get; set; }
    }

Answer 2

To quote your comment:

However; if I set the navigation property user.Role to null it works just fine. But, is this the recommended way of working?

Yes, in this case it is.

You must keep in mind that you enter a new context with a detached object user (including the reference to user.Role). By setting the state to Modified you attach the object user together with the related user.Role to this new context.

Because your are using a foreign key association - that means that the foreign key is represented by a property FkRoleId in the model class - the relationship is described in two ways: By the navigation property user.Role and by the scalar property user.FkRoleId. If these are not consistent - i.e. user.Role.PkId != user.FkRoleId - EF doesn't know which one describes the correct relationship and throws the exception you have.

If you set user.Role to null EF will consider the user.FkRoleId alone as the property that describes the relationship between user and role and the ambiguity that was causing the exception is removed.