"No POST data" in error report

[bblanchon]

Checklist

• Raised initially as discussion "No POST data" in error report #7899
• This cannot be dealt with as a third party library. (We prefer new functionality to be in the form of third party libraries where possible.)
• I have reduced the issue to the simplest possible case.

Description

I'm using Django 3.1.7 & DRF 3.12.2.
When an exception occurs in a ViewSet, Django automatically sends an email to the administrator.

The problem is that the POST data is always empty in this email:

POST: No POST data

Instead, I expect to see the JSON payload that was sent in the request body.

I added a breakpoint in django.utils.log.AdminEmailHandler.emit(), and I can confirm that request.POST is empty.
But on the other hand, I'm sure that request.data was not empty in the ViewSet.

I verified that the request's Content-Type and X-Requested-With are correctly set.
The only non-standard middlewares I use are corsheaders and admin_reorder; I don't think they are related to this problem.

[danielmoessner]

Any progress on this issue? I have the same problem.

[Hafnernuss]

I can also confirm this issue, and it makes it a little bit hard to trace back errors

Here is a discussion related to this problem

[rvinzent]

At this point I am convinced DRF is a dead project

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[bblanchon]

I still think this is an important feature, please don't close this issue.

[Hafnernuss]

I agree.

[markdawson]

I'm also having this issue.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[bblanchon]

I still think this is an important feature, please don't close this issue.

[donghj2000]

It is because django dose not parse body of application/json to request.POST field.You can convert json string to dict by yourself, like this:
res = request.body
json_str = res.decode('utf-8')
json_dict = json.loads(json_str)
Then write a custom log handler class instead of AdminEmailHandler to send your own dict data converted from json.

[donghj2000]

some code snippet:

 def emit(self, record):
        try:
            request = record.request
            subject = '%s (%s IP): %s' % (
                record.levelname,
                ('internal' if request.META.get('REMOTE_ADDR') in settings.INTERNAL_IPS
                 else 'EXTERNAL'),
                record.getMessage()
            )

            import json
            from django.http import QueryDict
            json_str = request.body.decode('utf-8')
            json_dict = json.loads(json_str)
            query_dict = QueryDict(mutable=True)
            for key in json_dict.keys():
                query_dict[key] = json_dict[key]
            request.POST = query_dict
            
        except Exception as ex:
            subject = '%s: %s' % (
                record.levelname,
                record.getMessage()
            )
            request = None
        subject = self.format_subject(subject)

and the message is ...\n\nGET: No GET data\n\nPOST:\nusername = 'python1'\npassword = '123456'\n\nFILES: No FILES data...

[bblanchon]

Thanks, @donghj2000, this is awesome, but I still think this should be a built-in feature.

[donghj2000]

Glad to help you. I have not found why they didn't do so. Another workaround is to use Middleware:

class ParseJsonData(MiddlewareMixin):
    def process_request(self, request):
        if request.content_type.startswith("application/json"):
            try:
                json_str = request.body.decode('utf-8')
                json_dict = json.loads(json_str)
                query_dict = QueryDict(mutable=True)
                for key in json_dict.keys():
                    query_dict[key] = json_dict[key]
                request.POST = query_dict
            except Exception as ex:
                pass

[rvinzent]

Glad to help you. I have not found why they didn't do so. Another workaround is to use Middleware:

class ParseJsonData(MiddlewareMixin):
    def process_request(self, request):
        if request.content_type.startswith("application/json"):
            try:
                json_str = request.body.decode('utf-8')
                json_dict = json.loads(json_str)
                query_dict = QueryDict(mutable=True)
                for key in json_dict.keys():
                    query_dict[key] = json_dict[key]
                request.POST = query_dict
            except Exception as ex:
                pass

This snippet has an issue where it assumes the JSON is an object and will fail on any other valid JSON value

[donghj2000]

It seems to be a bug exactly, but request.POST is initialized as a QueryDict(django.http.request.py->class HttpRequest) ,so I don't know how to deal with other JSON type...

[auvipy]

At this point I am convinced DRF is a dead project

no. it has 4 new more maintainers now. btw would love to see a failing test case to find out the fix for the problem. who is up for that? here is a comment pointing to the direction #1671 (comment)

[jonnythebard]

@auvipy

would love to see a failing test case to find out the fix for the problem

I can do this but I'd like to know the definition of the problem from your side.

@donghj2000 said,

It is because django dose not parse body of application/json to request.POST field.

Do you agree that it is a problem and request.POST also has to parse application/json?
I am asking this because I thought there must be a DRF design reason behind request.POST is not parsing application/json.
If you conceive this to be a bug rather than a DRF design, I can raise a fix PR.