Entity Framework: how to solve "FOREIGN KEY constraint may cause cycles or multiple cascade paths"?

Question

there are lots of questions about this problem, but I couldn't solve my case. can some one please take a look at this:

I have an Office table which has one-many relationship with Doctor and Secretary tables. Both of the last tables, are derived from Employee table which has a shared-primary-key relationship with predefined Users table created by sqlmembershipprovider. It seems there is a many-many relationship between Users table and Roles table which I haven't any hand in it.

My problem was in creating a (zero,one) - (one) relationship between my Employee table and that Users table which I ended with a shared primary key relationship between them and the error raised, then. (Is there a better solution for that problem?)

here is the error:

Introducing FOREIGN KEY constraint 'FK_dbo.aspnet_UsersInRoles_dbo.aspnet_Users_UserId' on table 'aspnet_UsersInRoles' may cause cycles or multiple cascade paths. Specify ON DELETE NO ACTION or ON UPDATE NO ACTION, or modify other FOREIGN KEY constraints. Could not create constraint. See previous errors.

here are my codes and membership codes after reverse engineering:

public class Office
{
    public Office()
    {
        this.Doctors = new HashSet<Doctor>();
        this.Secretaries = new HashSet<Secretary>();
    }

    [Key]
    public System.Guid OfficeId { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Doctor> Doctors { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Secretary> Secretaries { get; set; }
}

public class Employee
{
    [Key, ForeignKey("User")]
    [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.None)]
    public System.Guid Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [ForeignKey("Office")]
    public System.Guid OfficeId { get; set; }

    // shared primary key 
    public virtual aspnet_Users User { get; set; }

    public virtual Office Office { get; set; }
}

public class Doctor :Employee
{
    public Doctor()
    {
        this.Expertises = new HashSet<Expertise>();
    }
    //the rest..    
    public virtual ICollection<Expertise> Expertises { get; set; }
}

public class Secretary : Employee
{
    // blah blah
}

public class aspnet_Users
{
    public aspnet_Users()
    {
        this.aspnet_Roles = new List<aspnet_Roles>();
    }

    public System.Guid ApplicationId { get; set; }
    public System.Guid UserId { get; set; }
    //the rest..
    public virtual aspnet_Applications aspnet_Applications { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<aspnet_Roles> aspnet_Roles { get; set; }
}

public class aspnet_Roles
{
    public aspnet_Roles()
    {
        this.aspnet_Users = new List<aspnet_Users>();
    }

    public System.Guid ApplicationId { get; set; }
    public System.Guid RoleId { get; set; }
    //the rest..
    public virtual aspnet_Applications aspnet_Applications { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<aspnet_Users> aspnet_Users { get; set; }
}

EDIT: and the relationships go deeper, there is a many-one relationship between Users table and Applications table, also between Roles and Applications too.

Let me get this right, are you using the same value for the PK in the Employee and Users Table? — Carlos Grappa
yes, as I expect there should be a user value first then I use it in Employee. the error raises just in initialization. — Blazi

Charles Charles · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-24T03:44:47

You can use the fluent api to specify the actions the error message suggests.

In your Context:

protected override void OnModelCreating( DbModelBuilder modelBuilder )
{
        base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
        modelBuilder.Entity<aspnet_UsersInRoles>().HasMany(i => i.Users).WithRequired().WillCascadeOnDelete(false);
}

Note that you have not included the definition for the table aspnet_UsersInRoles so this code may not work.

Another option is to remove all CASCADE DELETES by adding this

modelBuilder.Conventions.Remove<OneToManyCascadeDeleteConvention>();

If you need more info about configuring relationships with the fluent api I suggest http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/data/jj591620

Entity Framework: how to solve "FOREIGN KEY constraint may cause cycles or multiple cascade paths"?

5 Answers