DBDelta: "table doesn't exist" for a table that was just created

Glancing at your code I see a few potential problems. According to this Codex page dbDelta is “picky”;

You must put each field on its own line in your SQL statement.
You must have two spaces between the words PRIMARY KEY and the definition of your primary key.
You must use the key word KEY rather than its synonym INDEX and you must include at least one KEY.
You must not use any apostrophes or backticks around field names.
Field types must be all lowercase.
SQL keywords, like CREATE TABLE and UPDATE, must be uppercase.
You must specify the length of all fields that accept a length parameter. int(11), for example.

The code you provided shows a unique key on a field that has not been created, there must be 2 spaces between KEY and the field name. There should be lengths specified where appropriate.

This Code Reference page show where dbDelta is used by WP. Taking a look at those functions might help in dealing with dbDeltas “pickiness”.

EDIT:

Here’s an example from upgrade.php

function install_global_terms() {
    global $wpdb, $charset_collate;
    $ms_queries = "
CREATE TABLE $wpdb->sitecategories (
  cat_ID bigint(20) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  cat_name varchar(55) NOT NULL default '',
  category_nicename varchar(200) NOT NULL default '',
  last_updated timestamp NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (cat_ID),
  KEY category_nicename (category_nicename),
  KEY last_updated (last_updated)
) $charset_collate;
";
// now create tables
    dbDelta( $ms_queries );
}

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