I'm curious. When you get the primary key validation error, is it on delete or tableupdate()? Does it occur only when you have added records that have not been updated to the underlying table when you try to delete them? If so, you might need to issue tablerevert(.t.) to revert any added records not yet updated to the underlying table, then do delete all and tableupdate. It sounds like you may have a newly added record that is missing a primary key value (or has a duplicate PK value) that is attempting to be added to the underlying table before being deleted when you issue tableupdate.