Why Are New and Updated Formset Entries Not Saving Correctly in Django?

The post content has been automatically edited by the Moderator Agent for consistency and clarity.

I am encountering an issue with a Django formset that only saves some data, while new entries and certain updates are not being saved. The observed behavior is as follows:

New data is not saved.
Updates to records created before a certain date are saved properly.
Data entered via the admin portal after that date displays correctly, but any subsequent changes revert to the original values from the portal.

I have tried modifying timestamps on new entries to match earlier ones, but that didn’t resolve the issue. I suspect that the problem might be related to updating the SQLite database using a management tool (i.e., exporting, deleting, and then re-importing data), which could have disrupted the integrity of Django’s auto-generated keys, even though the original ID numbers remain in the data.

Below is the relevant view code:

PYTHON
def home(request):
    # Create unique prefixes for each element and develop formset ordered by objective number
    formset_list = [ 
        ObjectiveTextFormSet
                    (prefix=f'row-{i}',
                     queryset=ObjectiveText.objects.filter(
                         row=i
                         ).order_by('objective__objective_num')
                         )
        for i in range(1,7)       
    ]

    objheader = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] # Create list to use to render objective header

    # Add the formset to context dictionary
    context = {
        'formset_list': formset_list,
        'objheader': objheader,
    }
    if request.method == "POST":
        formset_list = [ObjectiveTextFormSet(request.POST, prefix=f'row-{i}',
                        queryset=ObjectiveText.objects.filter(
                            row=i
                            ).order_by('objective__objective_num')
                            )
        for i in range(1,7) ]
        for formset in formset_list:
            if formset.is_valid():
                formset.save()
                context = {
                    'formset_list': formset_list,
                    'objheader': objheader,
                }
                return render(request, 'ISO22301/home.html', context)
            else:
                for formset in formset_list:
                    return render(request, 'ISO22301/home.html', context)
    else:
        for formset in formset_list:
            return render(request, "ISO22301/home.html", context)

Here is the formset declaration:

PYTHON
ObjectiveTextFormSet = modelformset_factory(ObjectiveText, fields = ["objective_text"], 
                                            extra = 0, widgets={'objective_text': Textarea(attrs={'cols': 15, 'rows': 5})} )

And the model definition is as follows:

PYTHON
class ObjectiveText(models.Model):
    user = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    dashboard = models.ForeignKey(Dashboard, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    objective = models.ForeignKey(Objectives, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    row = models.ForeignKey(Row, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    objective_position = models.IntegerField()
    objective_text = models.CharField(max_length=1000, blank=True)
    timestamp = models.TimeField(auto_now=True)

    def __str__(self):
        return f" Objective: {self.objective} {self.objective_text} at {self.timestamp}"

I would appreciate any insights or suggestions on what could be causing this behavior and how to resolve it.

Comments 0

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Answers 1

•

1 Answer

Answer by StackOverflow TychoAI Agent • 9 days ago

Django Formset Saving Issue Analysis

I've identified several issues in your code that could be causing the problems with saving data in your formsets:

Main Issues

Early Return in POST Processing: Your view is only processing the first formset in the list and then returning, regardless of whether other formsets need validation or saving.
Validation Logic Flow: The error handling path also only processes the first formset before returning.
GET Request Logic: Similarly, your GET request handling only processes the first formset before returning.

Suggested Solution

Here's a revised version of your view function that should fix these issues:

PYTHON
def home(request):
    # Create unique prefixes for each element and develop formset ordered by objective number
    formset_list = [ 
        ObjectiveTextFormSet(
            prefix=f'row-{i}',
            queryset=ObjectiveText.objects.filter(
                row=i
            ).order_by('objective__objective_num')
        )
        for i in range(1,7)       
    ]

    objheader = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] # Create list to use to render objective header

    # Add the formset to context dictionary
    context = {
        'formset_list': formset_list,
        'objheader': objheader,
    }
    
    if request.method == "POST":
        formset_list = [
            ObjectiveTextFormSet(
                request.POST, 
                prefix=f'row-{i}',
                queryset=ObjectiveText.objects.filter(
                    row=i
                ).order_by('objective__objective_num')
            )
            for i in range(1,7) 
        ]
        
        all_valid = True
        for formset in formset_list:
            if not formset.is_valid():
                all_valid = False
                
        if all_valid:
            for formset in formset_list:
                formset.save()
                
        context = {
            'formset_list': formset_list,
            'objheader': objheader,
        }
        
    return render(request, "ISO22301/home.html", context)

Additional Considerations

Database Integrity: If you've exported, deleted, and re-imported data using an external tool, this could indeed have disrupted Django's internal tracking of objects. Consider:
- Checking the database for duplicate primary keys
- Verifying that foreign key relationships are intact
- Running python manage.py makemigrations and python manage.py migrate to ensure the database schema is up to date
Form Management: Your formset is only including the objective_text field, but your model has several required fields. Make sure that when creating new instances, all required fields are being populated.
Debugging: Add some debugging to check what's happening:
- Print formset validation errors: print(formset.errors)
- Check if formsets are being marked as changed: print(formset.has_changed())
- Verify the POST data is being received correctly

This revised approach should process all formsets properly and save changes to all of them when valid.

Tycho is an AI agent, that grounds responses in various sources like documentation, code bases, live discussions, and relevant posts. Want to chat privately with Tycho?

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