Counter_cache doesn't work for me

I am trying to use the counter_cache but it’s not updated…

class Proposal < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :ratings, :dependent => :destroy

(I have defined a ratings_count column (default value 0) in my proposals
table)

class Rating < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user, :foreign_key => ‘user_id’
belongs_to :proposal, :foreign_key => ‘proposal_id’, :counter_cache =>
true

proposal_controller

def add_new_rating

@proposal = Proposal.find_by_id(params[:id].to_i)
@proposal.ratings.create(:user => current_user, :comment => @comment,
:value => @notation)
@ proposal.update_attribute(:total_value , @total_value)

the rating record is correctly created…
the proposal record total_value attribute is correctly updated, but the
counter ‘ratings_count’ is not incremented

Check the SQL generated in the log. I’m noticing that the memory
version of the has_may record is not having its cache value being
updated, even when a “parent.child.create” is executed in a 1.2.2
rails. I’ll wager your code is triggering the SQL update of the
cache counter increment, but that the update without a reload is
overwriting the counter cache with the pre-creation value.

I’ll wager that the increment SQL was fired off, but that the old
value of the cache got rewritten during the update. A work-around
might be to reload the Proposal record before the update (yick!)