3730: Cannot drop table referenced by a foreign key constraint

What does it mean?

The table cannot be dropped because another table's foreign key references it. As long as the reference exists, DROP is blocked.

Why does it happen?

Trying to drop a parent table while child tables linked to it by an FK still exist; not respecting the dependency order; not removing the foreign keys first.

How to fix it

First remove the referencing foreign key: ALTER TABLE child_table DROP FOREIGN KEY fk_name; then drop the table. Find dependent tables/constraints: SELECT * FROM information_schema.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE WHERE REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME = 'my_table'; In bulk operations, SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0; can be used temporarily, but be careful and set it back to 1 afterwards.