I got the error mesage, ERROR: could not find relation 19693 among query result relations, from a strange interaction between inser, foreign keys and a udf. After a but of trial and error, I came up with a test case: create or replace function explode_array(in_array anyarray) returns setof anyelement as $$ select ($1)[s] from generate_series(1,array_upper($1, 1)) as s; $$ language sql immutable; create table fp1(a text, b text, primary key(a,b)); create table foo (a text, b numeric, c text); insert into foo select 'a', 1, explode_array(string_to_array('a,b', ',')); -- works truncate foo; alter table foo add foreign key(a,b) references fp1(a,b) on delete cascade; insert into foo select 'a', 1, explode_array(string_to_array('a,b', ',')); -- fails I confirmed this on 8.1.4. merlin