[Resolved] When backing up the site to a staging server I get an error "no primary key"

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[Ian Henderson]

When backing up and restoring this site to a staging server using Updraft Plus I get the following hundreds of rows of errors on restoration: "prefix_toolet_post_guid_id" has no primary key, manual change needed on row XXX.

The site appears to function normally but I'm concerned about this. Can you clarify what's going on here?

[Nigel]

Hi Ian

I'm not sure what Updraft Plus means by manual change needed, as I doubt any action is required.

The WordPress database tables typically have a primary key, but it's not required. What is required is that each table have a unique index key, and the toolset_post_guid_id table does have a unique key (screenshot).

I think this is essentially a false positive which it is safe to ignore.

[Ian Henderson]

Thanks Nigel - yes, Updraft said the same thing:

This is nothing to worry about.

UpdraftPlus uses your GUID for your surrogate key. This is because just in case you have to merge your DB with another DB or data set at any point.

For example you have a customer table with an identity key and varied relationships based on that key. You need to merge this with another database of customers and relationships. In order to do this you have to resolve primary key conflicts because the second database has PKs that match your current customer table. Using GUIDs as your surrogate key instead guarantees that you can merge those tables without concern.