[Fixed]-When I use Django Celery apply_async with eta, it does the job immediately

Celery by default uses UTC time.
If your timezone is “behind” the UTC (UTC – HH:MM) the datetime.now() call will return a timestamp which is “behind” UTC, thus causing your task to be executed immediately.

You can use datetime.utcnow() instead:

test_limit = datetime.utcnow() + timedelta(minutes=5)

Since you are using django, there exist another option:

If you have set the USE_TZ = True in your setting.py, you have enabled the django timezone settings and you can use timezone.now() instead of datetime.utcnow():

from django.utils import timezone

...

test_limit = timezone.now() + timedelta(minutes=5)

‘test_limit’ variable hasn’t got timezone information. So Celery will understand eta param as UTC time.

Please use modified code:

class Something(CreateView):
    model = something

    def form_valid(self, form):
        obj = form.save(commit=False)
        number = 5

        test_limit = datetime.now()
        test_limit = test_limit.replace(tzinfo=tz.tzlocal())
        test_limit = test_limit + timedelta(minutes=5)

        testing_something.apply_async((obj, number), eta=test_limit)
        obj.save()

You might have the CELERY_ALWAYS_EAGER=True setting.

Could you also post your configuration and the Celery version you are using?

Here you might find some useful information.

I was facing the same issue with celery version 5.1.0 and I got to know that the celery config "CELERY_ALWAYS_EAGER" name has been changed to "CELERY_TASK_ALWAYS_EAGER" in version 4.0+.

So make sure you have set CELERY_TASK_ALWAYS_EAGER=False if you are using celery version 4.0+

Celery task with apply_async method should execute with specified delay in eta or countdown and both should work according to apply_async definition

    def apply_async(self, args=None, kwargs=None, task_id=None, producer=None,
                    link=None, link_error=None, shadow=None, **options):
        """Apply tasks asynchronously by sending a message.

        Arguments:
            args (Tuple): The positional arguments to pass on to the task.

            kwargs (Dict): The keyword arguments to pass on to the task.

            countdown (float): Number of seconds into the future that the
                task should execute.  Defaults to immediate execution.

            eta (~datetime.datetime): Absolute time and date of when the task
                should be executed.  May not be specified if `countdown`
                is also supplied.

            expires (float, ~datetime.datetime): Datetime or
                seconds in the future for the task should expire.
                The task won't be executed after the expiration time.

Following code works fine for me.

item/tasks.py

@app.task
def delete_item(item_pk):
    try:
        item = Item.objects.get(pk=item_pk)
        item.delete()
    except ObjectDoesNotExist:
        logging.warning(f"Cannot find item with id: {item_pk}.")

Now you can call this function in your logic in the following ways:

...

delete_item.apply_async((item.pk,), countdown=60)  # execute after 1 minute
...

(or)

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

...
eta = datetime.now() + timedelta(seconds=60)
delete_item.apply_async((item.pk,), eta=eta)  # execute after 1 minute
...