Importing opentelemetry.context issues a warning in Python 3.10 and 3.11

[contrast-jproberts]

Describe your environment

OS: reproduced on MacOS and Ubuntu
Python version: cpython-3.10.20, cpython-3.11.15
SDK version: N/A, this is a bug in the API
API version: 1.42.0

What happened?

I have a test suite for a project that integrates with opentelemetry. This test suite treats warnings as errors, and when I upgraded opentelemetry-api from 1.41.1 to 1.42.0, the tests using opentelemetry errored out on Python 3.10 and Python 3.11. There isn't an issue with Python 3.12+.

Steps to Reproduce

The following command returns a non-zero exit code in v1.42.0:

uv run --isolated -p 3.11 --with opentelemetry-api==1.42.0 python -W error -c 'import opentelemetry.context'

Expected Result

I expected the command to exit with 0, the same result as running v1.41.1 e.g.

uv run --isolated -p 3.11 --with opentelemetry-api==1.41.1 python -W error -c 'import opentelemetry.context'

Actual Result

> uv run --isolated -p 3.11 --with opentelemetry-api==1.42.0 python -W error -c 'import opentelemetry.context'
Failed to load context: contextvars_context, fallback to contextvars_context
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/context/__init__.py", line 36, in _load_runtime_context
    entry_points(  # type: ignore
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py", line 41, in entry_points
    return _original_entry_points_cached().select(**params)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py", line 37, in _original_entry_points_cached
    return _as_entry_points(original_entry_points())
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py", line 32, in _as_entry_points
    return EntryPoints(ep for group_eps in eps.values() for ep in group_eps)
                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.11.15-macos-aarch64-none/lib/python3.11/importlib/metadata/__init__.py", line 463, in values
    self._warn()
DeprecationWarning: SelectableGroups dict interface is deprecated. Use select.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/context/__init__.py", line 36, in _load_runtime_context
    entry_points(  # type: ignore
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py", line 41, in entry_points
    return _original_entry_points_cached().select(**params)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py", line 37, in _original_entry_points_cached
    return _as_entry_points(original_entry_points())
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py", line 32, in _as_entry_points
    return EntryPoints(ep for group_eps in eps.values() for ep in group_eps)
                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.11.15-macos-aarch64-none/lib/python3.11/importlib/metadata/__init__.py", line 463, in values
    self._warn()
DeprecationWarning: SelectableGroups dict interface is deprecated. Use select.

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/context/__init__.py", line 58, in <module>
    _RUNTIME_CONTEXT = _load_runtime_context()
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/context/__init__.py", line 50, in _load_runtime_context
    entry_points(  # type: ignore
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py", line 41, in entry_points
    return _original_entry_points_cached().select(**params)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py", line 37, in _original_entry_points_cached
    return _as_entry_points(original_entry_points())
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.cache/uv/archive-v0/Te1o9iQKYZLDOiqN/lib/python3.11/site-packages/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py", line 32, in _as_entry_points
    return EntryPoints(ep for group_eps in eps.values() for ep in group_eps)
                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/jamesroberts/.local/share/uv/python/cpython-3.11.15-macos-aarch64-none/lib/python3.11/importlib/metadata/__init__.py", line 463, in values
    self._warn()
DeprecationWarning: SelectableGroups dict interface is deprecated. Use select.

Additional context

I believe this is the commit that introduced the new behavior: 1a33c69

Would you like to implement a fix?

None

Tip

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[xrmx]

I'm pretty sure we have plenty more warnings raised by the opentelemetry-api package and so I won't assume you can run it with -Werror. Said that since you are testing with multiple version I guess this is a framework / library CI right?

If there's a way we can avoid the warnings we'll gladly take a PR for that.

[xrmx]

Also the Python 3.10 doc says that SelectableGroups is returned only if no parameter is passed to entry_points and we are passing the group and the name so confused on why we are even going through that path.

Ah I see we are doing the select and not passing parameters to entry_points directly.

Following may help:

diff --git a/opentelemetry-api/src/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py b/opentelemetry-api/src/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py
index be779f113..0a6cc8ee4 100644
--- a/opentelemetry-api/src/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py
+++ b/opentelemetry-api/src/opentelemetry/util/_importlib_metadata.py
@@ -33,12 +33,12 @@ def _as_entry_points(eps: Any) -> EntryPoints:
 
 
 @cache
-def _original_entry_points_cached() -> EntryPoints:
-    return _as_entry_points(original_entry_points())
+def _original_entry_points_cached(**params) -> EntryPoints:
+    return _as_entry_points(original_entry_points(**params))
 
 
 def entry_points(**params) -> EntryPoints:
-    return _original_entry_points_cached().select(**params)
+    return _original_entry_points_cached(**params)
 
 
 __all__ = [

But changes the behavior of the cache.

[contrast-jproberts]

Thanks for the quick response. I spent some more time looking into this and I don't see a safe way to avoid the warning, so I'll filter it in my project.

Notes on what I considered:

As you said, your suggestion changes the behavior of the cache, where before there was only 1 entry and now there can be many. I'd be concerned about increased memory usage from using this approach.

Trying to use select as the DeprecationWarning suggests doesn't work, because SelectionGroups.select returns self if no params are provided, and based on PR discussion, entry_points can't return EntryPoints in one Python version and SelectionGroups in another.

Catching the warning seemed promising, but this note in the docs makes me hesitate to use it:

Note: this can only be guaranteed in a single-threaded application. If two or more threads use the catch_warnings context manager at the same time, the behavior is undefined.

The last option I can think of is to use SelectableGroups._all to translate the group to EntryPoints. This is a private property. I think it's unlikely that the property will change, since Python 3.10 and Python 3.11 only receive security updates, but it would still be a risk to use it.

---

I see a other folks have an interest in this issue and a fix, so I'm going to leave the issue open in case they want to add different use cases or can correct any of my statements above.