[Django]-FieldError: Cannot resolve keyword 'XXXX' into field

Adding to the possible situations under which this happens. I searched for the field that could not be found in any of my models.

Searching on the code I found that I was annotating a queryset with such field and then feeding that queryset as an __in search to another (along other complex queries).

My work around was to change that annotated queryset to return IDs and use that. On this particular case that result was always going to be small so the list of IDs was not a problem to pass.

I’d had some ManyToMany relationships that were working one-way. I had been messing around with my settings and changing the name of the main application a couple times. Somewhere along the lines, I had removed it from the INSTALLED_APPS section! Once I added that back in, then it worked. Definitely PEBKAC, but maybe this will help someone some day. It took me a while to think of checking for that, since the app was mostly working.

For example, my app is called deathvalleydogs. I had two models:

class Trip(ModelBase):
    dogs = models.ManyToManyField(Dog, related_name="trips")

class Dog(ModelBase):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=200)

when I tried to show a template for a Trip listing the Dogs that were on the trip like this:

{% for dog in trip.dogs.all %}
     <li><a href="/dogs/{{ dog.id }}">{{ dog.name }}</a></li>
{% endfor %}

then I got an error of:

Cannot resolve keyword u'trips' into field. Choices are: active, birth_date, ...

Though I was still able to show a template for a Dog listing the trips they were on. Notice that trips should have been a field created by the m2m on the Dog objects. I wasn’t referencing that field in the template, but it barfed on that field anyway in debug mode.

I wish the error had been more explicit, but I’m just so happy I finally found my mistake!!!

You can try to reset migrations:

1. Remove the all migrations files within your project.
   Go through each of your projects apps migration folder (your_app/migrations/) and remove everything inside, except the init.py file.
2. Run makemigrations and migrate.

I was using the wrong dunder lookup on an admin model search field, so for example:

Not working:

class SomeAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = (
        "id",
        "thing_id",
        "count",
        "stuff_name",
        "stuff_id"
    )
    readonly_fields = ("count")
    # These cannot be resolved, because "stuff" doesn't exist on the model
    search_fields = ("stuff__name", "stuff__id")

    def stuff_name(self, obj):
        return obj.thing.stuff.name

    def stuff_id(self, obj):
        return obj.thing.stuff.id

    def get_queryset(self, request):
        return super().get_queryset(request).select_related("thing")

Working:

class SomeAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = (
        "id",
        "thing_id",
        "count",
        "stuff_name",
        "stuff_id"
    )
    readonly_fields = ("count")
    search_fields = ("thing__stuff__name", "thing__stuff__id", "thing__id")

    def stuff_name(self, obj):
        return obj.thing.stuff.name

    def stuff_id(self, obj):
        return obj.thing.stuff.id

    def get_queryset(self, request):
        return super().get_queryset(request).select_related("thing")

I had this error. And if your are using POSTMAN to do an API call to a URL, then you may be encountering this same error.

django.core.exceptions.FieldError: Cannot resolve keyword ‘player’ into field. Choices are …

Either in your model or serializer, you are referring to a particular field e.g. player in my case as you would when it is referenced as a foreign key.

In my case I had a Player model, and I wanted to update the reference in the save method of a Market model, when a weight is changed in the market, it should reflect immediately on the player.

class Market(models.Model):
    player = models.ForeignKey(Player)
    weight = models.CharField('Weight') 
    ...

    def save(self):
        if self.weight:
             # wrong
             Player.objects.get(player=self.player) # this object reference of itself does not exist, hence the error
             # right
             Player.objects.get(pk=self.player.pk)
             ...
        super().save()