> The strange thing is:
> insert is OK (materialized path gets populated)
> update of parent column is OK old values get delete and new ones get  
> inserted
> but if the exception handling of the unique_violation exception is  
> removed an update on the id column fails, with
> an duplicate pkey violation an the self reference in the 
> materialized  
> path eg for the values (25, 25)
> 
> It works OK with ignoring the exception but why is the exception  
> thrown in the first place.
Could you provide a sequence of INSERT and UPDATE statements
that produce the problem you describe?
Yours,
Laurenz Albe