Metaclass conflict error when base class uses an imported metaclass with no annotation

Bug Report

Since mypy 0.990 I am getting a "Metaclass conflict" error for the definition of a class derived from a base class which uses a metaclass imported from a third-party library that doesn't provide type annotations.

To Reproduce

# Import metaclass from external module which doesn't provide type annotations
from mymodule import MyMeta


class Base(metaclass=MyMeta):
    pass


# This generates the error: Metaclass conflict: the metaclass of a derived class must be a (non-strict) subclass of the metaclasses of all its bases  [misc]
class Derived(Base):
    pass


# If there is type annotation for the metaclass, no issue.
class MyMeta2(type):
    pass


class Base2(metaclass=MyMeta2):
    pass


class Derived2(Base2):
    pass

Also available as gist at: https://mypy-play.net/?mypy=latest&python=3.11&gist=6d41ba53b2226e3bef16df71554b10b1

Expected Behavior

No errors.

Actual Behavior

metaclass_conflict.py:10: error: Metaclass conflict: the metaclass of a derived class must be a (non-strict) subclass of the metaclasses of all its bases  [misc]
    class Derived(Base):
    ^
Found 1 error in 1 file (checked 1 source file)

Your Environment

Mypy version used: 0.911
Mypy command-line flags:

Mypy configuration options from mypy.ini (and other config files):

show_error_codes = True
ignore_missing_imports = True
pretty = True

Python version used: 3.8

More info

I tried some debugging and found out that:

the error comes from the TypeChecker.check_metaclass_compatibility() method in mypy/checker.py
Using the reproducer example above, when mypy enters the check_metaclass_compatibility() method for the derived classes, the main difference between Derived (which errors) and Derived2 (which doesn't) is that typ.metaclass_type is None in the first case (instead of the expected MyMeta) and MyMeta2 in the second (correctly).
This pointed me to look at the TypeInfo.calculate_metaclass_type() method in mypy/nodes.py . When run for the Derived object, the only candidate metaclass is MyMeta (correctly), but then this is excluded in the following for loop because MyMeta.type.mro is [] (I supposed because it's missing type annotation).

Workaround misleading metaclass conflict mypy errors

For anyone else that wanders through here because they are getting error: Metaclass conflict: the metaclass of a derived class must be a (non-strict) subclass of the metaclasses of all its bases [misc]

As mentioned in the description on this issue, check_metaclass_compatibility was introduced in v0.990 and is the source of the error.

I was getting the error when defining a custom Permission for Django Rest Framework.

That eventually led me to find a solved issue on djangorestframework-stubs typeddjango/djangorestframework-stubs#280. So in my case, although I couldn't see the conflict looking at the drf source code, it instead existed in the stub where there was an additional _SupportsHasPermission(Protocol) class in the mro.

mypy playground reproducing the specific red herring: https://mypy-play.net/?mypy=0.990&python=3.11&gist=bf79ced1e7ed3fa71a869056e8d42f8b

Here's a similar problem. Not if it's related. In this case, inheriting from dict while setting a custom metaclass results in a mypy error, but no run-time error:

# Metclass type annotation clearly available
class MyMeta(type):
    pass

# mypy metclass conflict error
class MyExampleDict(dict, metaclass=MyMeta):

    def __init__(self, data: Dict):
        super().__init__(data)

However, if we make a metaclass that extends python's ABCMeta, mypy doesn't complain:

from abc import ABCMeta

class MyMeta2(ABCMeta):
    pass

# no mypy error with MyMeta2
class MyExampleDict2(dict, metaclass=MyMeta2):

    def __init__(self, data: Dict):
        super().__init__(data)

Note that neither of the above results in a Python run-time error.

I think this is resolved on latest master

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Metaclass conflict error when base class uses an imported metaclass with no annotation #14182

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Metaclass conflict error when base class uses an imported metaclass with no annotation #14182

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kbehlers commented on Dec 16, 2022

zcutlip commented on Jan 28, 2023

hauntsaninja commented on Jun 20, 2025

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