Why I got a DataIntegrityViolationException even using CascadeType.ALL?

I've a table that has these kind of relationship:

parent 

|      \

child1   child1

      /        \

grandchild1  grandchild2

I called grandchildren, children and parent just for illustrate the problem.. isn't a inheritance problem

@Entity
@Table(name = “parent")
@Data
@EqualsAndHashCode(callSuper = true, exclude = { “..." })
@ToString(exclude = { “..." })
@NoArgsConstructor
public class Parent {

   private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

   @OneToMany(mappedBy = “parent")
   @Cascade({org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType.ALL})
   private Set<Child> children; 
}

Child.java

@Entity
@Table(name = “child")
@Data
@EqualsAndHashCode(callSuper = true)
@NoArgsConstructor
public class Child {

   private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
   
   @ManyToOne
   @JoinColumn(name = “parent_id")
   private Parent parent;
   
   @OneToMany(mappedBy = “child")
   @Cascade({org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType.ALL})
   @LazyCollection(LazyCollectionOption.FALSE)
   private List<Grandchild> grandchildren = new ArrayList<>();
   
}

I'm trying to delete a parent directly and with CascadeType.ALL I don't see any problem. But when I tried to delete I got:

> 08-26 11:36:33,755 ERROR [SqlExceptionHelper] Cannot delete or update
> a parent row: a foreign key constraint fails (database.child,
> CONSTRAINT FK_abcdefg12345 FOREIGN KEY (parent_id) REFERENCES
> parent_id (id)) 2020-08-26 11:36:33,773 INFO [AbstractBatchImpl ]
> HHH000010: On release of batch it still contained JDBC statements
> 26-Aug-2020 11:36:33.776 WARNING [http-nio-8080-exec-6]
> com.sun.faces.lifecycle.InvokeApplicationPhase.execute #{delete()}:
> org.springframework.dao.DataIntegrityViolationException: could not
> execute statement; SQL [n/a]; constraint [null]; nested exception is
> org.hibernate.exception.ConstraintViolationException: could not
> execute statement

I thought that could be a mistake in import CascadeType from JPA instead of CascadeType from org.hibernate. I also tried uses only JPA code like @OneToMany(mappedBy = "parent", orphanRemoval = true, cascade = CascadeType.ALL) and didn't work.

Code

parent.setChildren(null);
parentRepository.delete(parent); //throws the exception

Dependencies

• Spring Data JPA 1.7.0
• Hibernate 4.2.1.Final
• Spring Integration JDBC 2.2.6
• Spring Integration JPA 2.2.6

What am I doing wrong?

Even if the relationship is defined as bidirectional, cascading delete is always one-way.

When you delete from a main table that is referred to by a foreign key, the entries that refer to that entry are deleted.

I would establish the cascade deletion in the properties that you have annotated with JoinColumn, the ones that have a name, and not in the mapped ones.

And by deleting a grandfather, his children and grandchildren should be deleted.