How to update by COUNT from another table in my sql

Question

I use this query for updating the articles published by authors

UPDATE authors SET total_articles = 
(
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM articles 
WHERE articles.author_id=authors.author_id  
GROUP BY author_id
)

However, when I add an additional WHERE clause to count only published articles as

UPDATE authors SET published_articles = 
(
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM articles 
WHERE articles.author_id=authors.author_id AND articles.status='published' 
GROUP BY author_id
)

The count(*) does not correctly count the number of published articles.

Answer 1

what if you change the query like below

UPDATE authors SET published_articles = 
(
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM articles a
JOIN authors au ON a.author_id = au.author_id 
WHERE a.status='published' 
GROUP BY a.author_id
)

Answer 2

this could be related to your data content but the relation could be based on a join on subselect result

  UPDATE authors 
  INNER JOIN (
  SELECT articles.author_id , COUNT(*) as num 
  FROM articles 
  WHERE articles.author_id=authors.author_id 
  AND articles.status='published' 
  GROUP BY author_id
  ) t on t.author_id=authors.author_id 
  SET published_articles = t.num

Answer 3

Try using the UPDATE with JOIN :

update authors a
join (
    select author_id,
        count(*) cnt
    from articles
    where status = 'published'
    group by author_id
    ) ar
    on ar.author_id = a.author_id
set a.total_articles = ar.cnt;

It finds filtered count of published articles per author in subquery and then join it with author table to update it's column.