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[Bug]: Primary key rename leads to unwanted schema change #4163
Description
What did you do?
When renaming a non-editable default "pkuid" primary key name from a table generated from QGis with this kind of table schema :
CREATE TABLE "table_name" (pkuid integer primary key autoincrement, ....)
DB Browser for SQLite alters it to
CREATE TABLE "table_name" ("new_key_name" integer, .... , PRIMARY KEY ("new_key_name" AUTOINCREMENT) )
All seems to work until creating entities in QGis when primary key autoincrementing doesn't work anymore.
See qgis/QGIS#22330
What did you expect to see?
I expect that DB Browser for SQLite respects initial schema :
CREATE TABLE "table_name" ("new_key_name" integer primary key autoincrement, ....)
What did you see instead?
Instead it recreates the table like this :
CREATE TABLE "table_name" ("new_key_name" integer, .... , PRIMARY KEY ("new_key_name" AUTOINCREMENT) )
DB4S Version
3.12.2
What OS are you seeing the problem on?
Windows
OS version
Windows 11
Relevant log output
Prevention against duplicate issues
- I have searched for similar issues
Activity
FriedrichFroebel commentedon Jul 23, 2026
Version 3.12.2 is rather old. Have you tried the latest release? While I see the schema change, I cannot see an issue with the auto-increment behavior afterwards.
VxTedxV commentedon Jul 24, 2026
Would like to but cannot test latest release due to policy from my employer.
Do you mean you tried in QGis ? Should I provide screenshots from that software to show the difference ?
chrisjlocke commentedon Jul 24, 2026
The create statement can be written in various ways.. The way db4s does it is not 'wrong' or incorrect.
Have you tried adding a record in db4s to confirm the record increments correctly?
FriedrichFroebel commentedon Jul 24, 2026
I have not tested with QGis, but with DB4S, as this is the issue tracker for DB4S and I do not think that installing arbitrary software for this helps with this issue. The auto-increments work correctly with the changed schema in DB4S in the latest version and - as Chris mentioned - there are multiple ways to express CREATE statements. If you have to modify your third-party databases with DB4S and this leads to the database not being handled correctly externally while still using valid syntax, I would argue that the external application should fix it and not DB4S. For this reason, I am tempted to close this issue as invalid.
VxTedxV commentedon Jul 24, 2026
I understand. I still believe DB4S shouldn't change initial provided schema -> enhancement ?
BTW, thanks for your answers !
FriedrichFroebel commentedon Jul 24, 2026
With renaming columns, you are changing the schema, and in these cases I do not see an issue with using an equivalent "normalized" schema definition. While we could consider it an enhancement/feature request, given the current status about active maintenance this is unlikely of getting changed in the near future unless you are providing a straightforward patch yourself.