In MySQL how do I fix the error code 1175 during an update in MySQL workbench?

Richard C.

—October 15, 2023

The problemThe problem

When running an update command against a MySQL database, such as UPDATE Person SET Age=11;, you might get the error SQL Error [1175] [HY000]: You are using safe update mode and you tried to update a table without a WHERE that uses a KEY column. This could be in MySQL Workbench, or any other database GUI client, such as DBeaver. The error comes from the MySQL server, not the client.

The solutionThe solution

The first solution is to obey the error, and change your update query to use a where clause that acts only on rows with a specific Id, such as:

UPDATE Person
SET Age=11
WHERE Id = 5;

If however you do want to update every row in the table, you can disable safe mode. Run the query below before running your update command. It changes the variable SQL_SAFE_UPDATES, which applies per session, so you need to run it every time you log in.

SET SQL_SAFE_UPDATES = 0;

To turn it back on again, run:

SET SQL_SAFE_UPDATES = 1;