Stop API list pages timing out when opened in a browser - #1391
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The auto-generated ModelChoiceFilter for a foreign key renders the browsable API's filter form as a <select> with one option per row of the related table. Filter fields that terminate on the source image table (tens of millions of rows) made the detections, occurrences and jobs HTML pages time out at the proxy, and the taxon select made the classifications page take ~15 seconds. Declare those fields as NumberFilters on explicit FilterSet classes (following the existing JobFilterSet pattern) so the form renders a plain number input. The query-parameter contract is unchanged for existing ids; the one deliberate difference is that an id with no matching row now returns an empty page instead of a validation error, because a plain number filter does not check that the id exists. Tests pin the parameter contract, the empty-page and 400 edge cases, and that the browsable pages render number inputs rather than selects.
Auditing every filterset in the repo for the same defect found two more fields that terminate on huge tables: taxa can be filtered by parent (an option per row of the taxon table itself) and identifications by occurrence and taxon (the occurrence table holds millions of rows). Declare them as NumberFilters like the previous commit so the browsable API renders number inputs instead of enumerating the tables.
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📝 WalkthroughWalkthroughChangesNumeric filter controls
Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes Merge Risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to The change replaces large related-object selects with numeric ID inputs, avoiding expensive form rendering while preserving filtering behavior. However, IDs beyond the database bigint range may cause affected API endpoints to return a server error instead of rejecting invalid input, so this should be addressed before merge. Suggested reviewers: 🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1❌ Failed checks (1 warning)
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Full details: Description checkExplanation The description clearly explains the timeout cause, affected endpoints, implementation, preserved API behavior, regression coverage, and remaining deployment verification. It does not include the template's optional screenshots, deployment notes, or checklist, but the required change and testing information is substantially complete. ✨ Finishing Touches 💡 1📝 Generate docstrings 💡
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Pull request overview
This PR prevents DRF browsable-API list pages from timing out in browsers by replacing django-filter’s auto-generated foreign-key <select> filters (which enumerate entire related tables) with NumberFilter inputs for fields that point at very large tables (notably SourceImage and Taxon). It keeps existing query parameter names intact and adds tests to pin both filtering behavior and the HTML form shape.
Changes:
- Add explicit
FilterSetclasses (or override fields on existing ones) so huge-table foreign key filters render as number inputs instead of populated selects. - Switch affected viewsets from
filterset_fieldstofilterset_classwhere needed to ensure the custom filters are used. - Add API tests asserting (1) filtering-by-id behavior is unchanged and (2) browsable API HTML contains number inputs (not
<select>) for the targeted fields.
Reviewed changes
Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
ami/main/api/views.py |
Introduces custom FilterSets for detections/occurrences/taxa/classifications/identifications and wires them into viewsets to keep browsable API filter forms lightweight. |
ami/jobs/views.py |
Overrides source_image_single in JobFilterSet with NumberFilter to avoid enumerating SourceImage in browsable API filters. |
ami/main/tests.py |
Adds tests pinning filter-by-id behavior and asserting browsable API HTML uses number inputs for huge-table-related filters. |
ami/jobs/tests/test_jobs.py |
Adds tests pinning source_image_single filtering behavior and confirming browsable API renders it as a number input. |
Suppressed comments (1)
ami/main/tests.py:7772
IdentificationFilterSetalso declarestaxonas aNumberFilter, but this test only checks that non-numeric input is rejected (400) for theoccurrencefilter on identifications. Add thetaxoncase too so both NumberFilters are pinned against regression.
("/api/v2/taxa/", "parent"),
("/api/v2/identifications/", "occurrence"),
]:
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Actionable comments posted: 1
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Inline comments:
In `@ami/main/api/views.py`:
- Line 1177: Replace NumberFilter with an integer-backed filter for all six
integer-ID declarations, including IdentificationFilterSet.taxon:
ami/main/api/views.py:1177-1177, 1467-1467, 1792-1792, 2221-2221, and 2388-2389.
Update the regression test loop at ami/main/tests.py:7765-7775 to include all
six parameters, verifying fractional values return HTTP 400.
Apply the same fix in `@ami/jobs/views.py` at line 149: Covers the
source_image_single declaration in the jobs filter set.
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NumberFilter's DecimalField accepted `?source_image=1.5`, which Django then truncated to id 1 and filtered by a different, valid row. RelatedIdFilter in ami/base/filters.py uses an IntegerField so that returns 400, and replaces the six NumberFilter declarations so the rationale lives in one place. Also covers the identifications `taxon` param in the unknown-id / non-integer-id tests. Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Actionable comments posted: 1
🧹 Nitpick comments (1)
ami/main/tests.py (1)
7688-7688: 📐 Maintainability & Code Quality | 🔵 Trivial | ⚡ Quick winMake
ENDPOINT_PARAMSimmutable.Ruff RUF012 flags this mutable class attribute. The tests only iterate over the matrix. Use a tuple so one test cannot mutate shared class state.
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Inline comments:
In `@ami/base/filters.py`:
- Line 19: Add a maximum-value validation to the IntegerField used by
RelatedIdFilter, limiting related IDs to the PostgreSQL bigint range so
oversized values are rejected during request validation with the existing 400
handling.
---
Nitpick comments:
In `@ami/main/tests.py`:
- Line 7688: Change the ENDPOINT_PARAMS class attribute from a mutable list to
an immutable tuple, preserving all existing entries and iteration behavior.
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ami/base/filters.pyami/jobs/tests/test_jobs.pyami/jobs/views.pyami/main/api/views.pyami/main/tests.py
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…not a 500 Postgres compares a bigint column to an oversized numeric literal without raising, so the filter returns an empty page like any unknown id. Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Tested on Arctia, much better! No timeouts! |
Summary
Opening several API list endpoints in a web browser hangs and eventually fails with a gateway timeout.
curland the web app are unaffected, which is why this went unnoticed: the difference is theAcceptheader, not the endpoint or the data.A browser asks for HTML, so DRF renders the browsable API page. That page includes a filter form, and django-filter renders a foreign-key filter as a
<select>populated by enumerating the related table. Several filters point at tables with millions of rows — the source image table holds tens of millions — so building the form reads the whole table and the request dies before the page renders.Measured against a deployment, the same URLs differing only in
Accept:text/htmlapplication/jsonThis replaces the auto-generated foreign-key filters on those large tables with plain integer inputs, via one shared
RelatedIdFilter. The query parameters are unchanged, so existing API clients are unaffected.Why
HTML_SELECT_CUTOFFdid not already cover thisThe project already caps how many options a browsable-API form will render, via
"HTML_SELECT_CUTOFF": 100in the REST framework settings. That setting applies to DRF's own serializer forms — the ones used for POST and PUT on detail pages, which is why those pages are fine. It has no effect on django-filter's filter form, which builds its own fields. The two forms look alike on the page but come from different code, and only one of them was bounded.List of Changes
DetectionFilterSetdeclaringsource_imageas aRelatedIdFilter; the viewset switches fromfilterset_fieldstofilterset_class.OccurrenceFilterSetdeclaringdetections__source_imageas aRelatedIdFilter, used by both the occurrence list and the occurrence stats viewsets, which share the same filter fields.source_image_singledeclared as aRelatedIdFilteron the existingJobFilterSet.RelatedIdFilterfor the taxon and parent-taxon filters, which enumerate the taxon table.IdentificationFilterSetdeclaringoccurrenceandtaxonasRelatedIdFilters.?taxon=1.5is now rejected with 400 instead of silently matching id 1.?<param>=<id>.RelatedIdFilter(ami/base/filters.py) is aNumberFilterwhose form field is anIntegerField;NumberFilter's defaultDecimalFieldaccepted1.5, which Django's FK lookup truncated to1. Tests pin the behaviour per endpoint and parameter: unknown id returns an empty page, non-numeric and fractional ids return 400.Notes
The implicit convention here is that a filter field should terminate on a small table;
ClassificationViewSetalready carries a comment linking DRF's documentation on large choice fields. These entries had drifted from it. Declaring aFilterSetfollows the patternJobFilterSetalready established for cases where the auto-generated filterset is not what you want. All six declarations share the oneRelatedIdFilterclass, so the rationale and the link to DRF's guidance on large choice fields live in a single docstring.A separate option worth discussing is turning off the browsable API in production, which would sidestep this class of problem entirely and return JSON to anyone opening an API URL in a browser. That is a policy decision about whether the browsable API is a feature the project wants to keep, and the change here is worth making either way.
What still needs verification
The timings above come from a deployment and are not reproduced by the test suite; the tests assert the form shape rather than a duration. Confirming the fix end to end means opening each list page in a browser after deploying.
Summary by CodeRabbit
New Features
Bug Fixes