[Copilot]

Fixes #39124

Description
EF Core could prune a required one-to-one join used as the ExecuteUpdate target, producing an UPDATE alias absent from FROM and failing with SQL Server error. This is fixed by marking the update-target alias as referenced.

Customer impact
ExecuteUpdate call that affects a related one-to-one now throws an error.

var affected = context.Roots.ExecuteUpdate(s => s
    .SetProperty(r => r.RequiredAssociate.String, "foo_updated")
    .SetProperty(r => r.RequiredAssociate.Int, 20));

How found
User reported on EF Core 11.0.0-rc1. This is a fairly common case.

Regression
Yes, from EF Core 10.x, introduced by #37819

Testing
Tests added.

Risk
Low. The fix is minimal and only affects pruning behavior.

[Copilot]

Copilot review overview

🟢 Approval recommended

No unresolved review issues remain.

Review effort: Lite
Findings: None

What changed in this PR

Fixes SQL Server ExecuteUpdate failures by preserving joins referenced by update-target columns during SQL tree pruning.

Changes:

• Visits setter target columns before pruning.
• Adds regression coverage for navigation and primitive-collection updates.

File	Description
test/​EFCore.SqlServer.FunctionalTests/​Query/​Associations/​Navigations/​NavigationsBulkUpdateSqlServerTest.cs	Verifies generated SQL and successful updates.
src/​EFCore.Relational/​Query/​SqlTreePruner.cs	Preserves update-target joins during pruning.

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[github-code-quality]

Code Coverage Overview

Languages: C#

C# / code-coverage

The overall line coverage in commit 17933de in the copilot/fix-ef-core-... branch remains at 67%, unchanged from commit e2d4df3 in the release/11.0 branch.

Show a line coverage summary of the most impacted files.

File	release/11.0 e2d4df3	copilot/fix-ef-core-... 17933de	+/-
/Users/runner/w...ReaderWriter.cs	63%	0%	-63%
/Users/runner/w...rTypeMapping.cs	81%	56%	-25%
D:\a\efcore\efc...rTypeMapping.cs	81%	56%	-25%
D:\a\efcore\efc...ssionVisitor.cs	96%	93%	-3%
/Users/runner/w...ionGenerator.cs	100%	99%	-1%
/home/runner/wo...ionGenerator.cs	100%	99%	-1%
D:\a\efcore\efc...ionGenerator.cs	100%	99%	-1%
/Users/runner/w...ssionVisitor.cs	79%	81%	+2%
D:\a\efcore\efc...ssionFactory.cs	84%	88%	+4%
/home/runner/wo...ssionFactory.cs	83%	88%	+5%

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_{Updated October 01, 2026 18:47 UTC}

[artl93]

User reported regression. Approved.