Self-referencing in EF core Error: the insert statement conflicted with the foreign key same table constraint

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I have a Category model with self-reference and worked fine on creating database yet when I try to insert a parent category (an entity without parentId) I get the error pointing to the foreign-key "ParentId", but it works fine when I insert a topel manually with insert script in SSMS and works fine with ef core when adding a subcategory (an entity which has a parentId)

Category Model

public class Category : ICategory
{
    public Category()
    {
    }

    [Key]
    public int Id { get; set; }

    [Required]
    [MinLength(2)]
    [MaxLength(32)]
    public string Title { get; set; }

    public string Icon { get; set; }

    [DefaultValue(true)]
    public bool IsEnabled { get; set; }

    [Required]
    public DateTime CreateTimeStamp { get; set; }

    public DateTime LastUpdateTimeStamp { get; set; }

    [ForeignKey("User")]
    public int CreatorUserId { get; set; }
    
    public int? ParentId { get; set; }

    public virtual User User { get; set; }
    
    [ForeignKey("ParentId")]
    public virtual Category Parent { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Category> Children { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Service> Services { get; set; }
}

DBContext

public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; }

modelBuilder.Entity<Category>(entity =>
        {
            entity.HasIndex(e => e.Title).IsUnique();
            entity.HasOne(e => e.User).WithMany(e => e.CreatedCategories)
                .HasForeignKey(e => e.CreatorUserId).OnDelete(DeleteBehavior.Restrict);
            entity.HasOne(e => e.Parent).WithMany(e => e.Children).HasForeignKey(e => e.ParentId).IsRequired(false);
        });

Migration

protected override void Up(MigrationBuilder migrationBuilder)
{
        migrationBuilder.CreateTable(
            name: "Categories",
            columns: table => new
            {
                Id = table.Column<int>(nullable: false)
                    .Annotation("SqlServer:Identity", "1, 1"),
                Title = table.Column<string>(maxLength: 32, nullable: false),
                Photo = table.Column<string>(nullable: true),
                IsEnabled = table.Column<bool>(nullable: false),
                CreateTimeStamp = table.Column<DateTime>(nullable: false),
                LastUpdateTimeStamp = table.Column<DateTime>(nullable: false),
                CreatorUserId = table.Column<int>(nullable: false),
                ParentId = table.Column<int>(nullable: true)
            }
            constraints: table =>
            {
                table.PrimaryKey("PK_Categories", x => x.Id);
                table.ForeignKey(
                    name: "FK_Categories_Users_CreatorUserId",
                    column: x => x.CreatorUserId,
                    principalTable: "Users",
                    principalColumn: "Id",
                    onDelete: ReferentialAction.Restrict);
                table.ForeignKey(
                    name: "FK_Categories_Categories_ParentId",
                    column: x => x.ParentId,
                    principalTable: "Categories",
                    principalColumn: "Id",
                    onDelete: ReferentialAction.Restrict);
            });
}

I marked "ParentId" nullable anyway I could yet ef core is preventing me though the SQL Server is fine with it!

Error message inner exception:

The INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY SAME TABLE constraint "FK_Categories_Categories_ParentId". The conflict occurred in database "Unknown_Db", table "dbo.Categories", column 'Id'.

1 Answers

Try this where you handle input values:

if (category.ParentId == 0)
{
    category.ParentId = null;
}
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