id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc	stage	has_patch	needs_docs	needs_tests	needs_better_patch	easy	ui_ux
37187	Extraneous and confusing ModelAdmin select_related deprecation warnings	Mike Edmunds	Mike Edmunds	"Some of the deprecation warnings introduced in 122f0b62a1effa558aad67a62e5b0d84a49cdc23 (as a follow-up to #36593):
* Are issued against Django internals or wsgiref/handlers.py (or whatever code is serving the admin site)—''not'' against the code that is responsible for the deprecated behavior.
* Sometimes include an extra warning that ""Calling select_related() with no arguments is deprecated,"" even though select_related() is not called anywhere in the user's code.

To reproduce (Django 6.1b1, run with `PYTHONWARNINGS=always` to see all deprecations):
1. Have a `models.Author` and `models.Book` with a foreign key to author.
2. Define `admin.BookAdmin` with a `get_select_related()` method that returns the deprecated value `True`:
{{{#!python
from django.contrib import admin
from .models import Author, Book

class BookAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ['title', 'author__name']

    def get_list_select_related(self, request):
        return True  # deprecated return value

admin.site.register(Author)
admin.site.register(Book, BookAdmin)
}}}
3. Run the devserver and visit `/admin/yourapp/books/`

Results: the warning about returning True from get_list_select_related() points to Django's internals, and there's an extra warning about wsgiref/handlers.py calling select_related() with no arguments:
{{{#!text
.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/options.py:930: RemovedInDjango70Warning: Returning True from ModelAdmin.get_list_select_related() is deprecated. Return False or a list or tuple of fields to fetch instead.
  warnings.warn(
.pyenv/versions/3.14.3/lib/python3.14/wsgiref/handlers.py:137: RemovedInDjango70Warning: Calling select_related() with no arguments is deprecated. Specify the fields to fetch instead.
  self.result = application(self.environ, self.start_response)
}}}

Expected: ideally, something that points to the BookAdmin implementation (and nothing about calling select_related()):
{{{#!text
.../example-project/yourapp/admin.py:7: RemovedInDjango70Warning: Returning True from ModelAdmin.get_list_select_related() is deprecated. Return False or a list or tuple of fields to fetch instead.
  def get_list_select_related(self, request):
}}}

There are two issues here:
A. ModelAdmin.get_changelist_instance() is trying to warn about an overridden subclass method that has already been called so is no longer on the stack. (It's also missing `skip_file_prefixes`, which is why it's blaming Django internals. But adding that would just move the blame to wsgiref—still not helpful.)
B. QuerySet.select_related() is unconditionally issuing a deprecation warning, even when it's being used internally to implement a deprecated feature elsewhere in Django (like in ModelAdmin).

The second problem is easily solved: we implemented `warn_about_external_use()` specifically for this use case.

The first problem is probably solvable by using `warnings.warn_explicit()` to point to the subclass method that is actually at fault. (I'm looking into that now.) If that doesn't work, we could change the warning message to include the actual subclass name: `Returning True from yourapp.admin.BookAdmin.get_list_select_related() is deprecated.`


Also:

* If you replace `BookAdmin.get_list_select_related()` with `list_select_related = True`, you get a nice startup-time warning that points at the `class BookAdmin` definition in your own admin.py. But you still get the extraneous `select_related()` warning in wsgiref when visiting the view.
* If you load the admin view from a test, the warnings will point to the `self.client.get(""/admin/core/books/"")` line instead of wsgiref. (That at least gives you some idea which code might be the problem.)
* I suspect there's a similar issue with the warning for overriding get_actions()/get_action_choices() without the 'action_location' parameter (from #12090 - f30acb184f75fd9260cfd6ddc48a3bbbd49f9c1d).
* The extraneous select_related() warning occurs in Django's tests, but is being suppressed by #37072. (The PR for that issue made it visible, and pulling that thread lead to this.)"	Bug	assigned	contrib.admin	6.1	Normal		ModelAdmin, deprecation		Unreviewed	0	0	0	0	0	0