django-simple-history doesn't create any historical data

Question

In my application, I have a model DataSeriesModel and my migration file for this model looks like this:

migrations.CreateModel(
            name='DataSeriesModel',
            fields=[
                ('created', model_utils.fields.AutoCreatedField(default=django.utils.timezone.now, editable=False, verbose_name='created')),
                ('modified', model_utils.fields.AutoLastModifiedField(default=django.utils.timezone.now, editable=False, verbose_name='modified')),
                ('id', model_utils.fields.UUIDField(default=uuid.uuid4, editable=False, primary_key=True, serialize=False)),
                ('name', models.CharField(max_length=255)),
                ...

After adding history = HistoricalRecords() field to the model and running makemigrations I'm getting another migrations file with the content as follows:

operations = [
        migrations.CreateModel(
            name='HistoricalDataSeriesModel',
            fields=[
                ('created', model_utils.fields.AutoCreatedField(default=django.utils.timezone.now, editable=False, verbose_name='created')),
                ('modified', model_utils.fields.AutoLastModifiedField(default=django.utils.timezone.now, editable=False, verbose_name='modified')),
                ('id', model_utils.fields.UUIDField(db_index=True, default=uuid.uuid4, editable=False, primary_key=True)),
                ('name', models.CharField(max_length=255)),
                ...
                ('history_id', models.AutoField(primary_key=True, serialize=False)),
                ('history_date', models.DateTimeField(db_index=True)),
                ('history_change_reason', models.CharField(max_length=100, null=True)),
                ('history_type', models.CharField(choices=[('+', 'Created'), ('~', 'Changed'), ('-', 'Deleted')], max_length=1)),
                ('history_user', models.ForeignKey(null=True, on_delete=django.db.models.deletion.SET_NULL, related_name='+', to=settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL)),
            ],

There are two primary keys in this migration file and of course, after migrate command we're getting:

django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: multiple primary keys for table "data_series_models_historicaldataseriesmodel" are not allowed
LINE 1: ...cription" text NULL, "history_id" serial NOT NULL PRIMARY KE...

When I tried to manually set history_id to for example models.IntegerField() the migrate command worked without errors, but I didn't get any historical records in the database.

What could be wrong?
What can I try/change to get any historical records?

Answer 1

I had a similar issue while using the same model_utils lib for the UUID field

First of all, history_id should remain your primary key in order for history to work.

Secondly: model_utils.fields.UUIDField inherits as primary_key and manually set it to False didn't provide any effect.

So the solution: Replace model_utils.fields.UUIDField with models.UUIDField