3406
MariaDBERRORNotableForeign KeysHIGH confidence
Foreign key column not found in table
Production Risk
Low — DDL fails; no constraint is created.
How to reproduce
trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
ALTER TABLE child ADD FOREIGN KEY (nonexistent_col) REFERENCES parent(id);
expected output
ERROR 3406 (HY000): Foreign key column does not exist in the table.
Fix
Verify column name with DESCRIBE
Verify column name with DESCRIBE
DESCRIBE child; ALTER TABLE child ADD FOREIGN KEY (actual_col_name) REFERENCES parent(id);
Why this works
DESCRIBE shows exact column names to use in the foreign key constraint.
What not to do
✕
Sources
Official documentation ↗
MySQL 8.0 — 3406 ER_FK_COLUMN_NOT_FOUND_IN_TABLE
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