I haven't seen anything to indicate that 8.x improves foreign key refererence locking and fixes the foreign key 'deadlock detected' issue. Has that been addressed in 8.1? I sort my records before loading, but am still getting 'deadlock detected' (still running 7.3.4). I have B references C B references A A references C Any new records for C are loaded first (both A and B depend on C). A is loaded next (B depends on A). B is loaded last. Both A and B are loaded in 'Table C' sorted order. However, a deadlock can occur with one process's A records and another's B records, due to the fact that both have a foreign key reference to C. The only way I know of to eliminate the deadlocks without serializing the processes is to remove the foreign key reference from either A or B. However, jeopardizes referential integrity if something goes wrong with the load process. I've never quite understood why a READ of a record with a foreign key reference results in the referenced record being locked with more than a shared lock. Wes