[Django]-Django: datetime.now() time inconsistency in model object save

auto_now_add is not a good approach. Avoid to use it. The best way is to use set default value:

from django.utils import timezone

date_created = models.DateTimeField(default=timezone.now)

django.utils.timezone will store the datetime according to your timezone settings.

Notice the missing () after timezone.now that is because we are passing a callable to the model and it will be called each time a new instance is saved. With the parentheses, it’s only being called once when models.py loads. This question clarifies this issue in more details.

You should not initialize the datetime.now() while defining the model. This causes some kind of “caching” the datetime.now.

Instead of:

Notification(from_user=from_user, to_user=to_user,
                            created_date=datetime.now())

You should use:

Notification(from_user=from_user, to_user=to_user,
                            created_date=datetime.now)

I believe it’s due to the way Pythons runtime environment processes, hopefully someone can re-iterate on that.
auto_add_now=True should be the solution as you’ve suggested.