[Python] Python Flask Class initiating with NoneType despite being passed

I'm working on a flask app and it's been running for a while and I don't often add new users so I don't know exactly when this broke, but recently I tried to add a new user and I'm getting an error when adding a User to the database that appears to be caused by the class not instantiating with the variables set. Here's the base class with init:

class User(UserMixin,db.Model):
__tablename__='users'
id=db.Column(db.Integer,primary_key=True)
email = db.Column(db.String(128),unique=True,index=True)
username=db.Column(db.String(64),unique=True,index=True)
first_name=db.Column(db.String(64))
last_name=db.Column(db.String(64))
about_me=db.Column(db.Text())
role_id = db.Column(db.Integer,db.ForeignKey('roles.id'))
password_hash = db.Column(db.String(128))
confirmed = db.Column(db.Boolean, default=False)
member_since=db.Column(db.DateTime(),default=datetime.utcnow)
last_seen=db.Column(db.DateTime(),default=datetime.utcnow)
avatar_hash = db.Column(db.String(32))
articles = db.relationship('Article',backref='author',lazy="dynamic")
followed = db.relationship('Follow',
foreign_keys=[Follow.follower_id],
backref=db.backref('follower', lazy='joined'),
lazy='dynamic',
cascade='all, delete-orphan')
followers = db.relationship('Follow',
foreign_keys=[Follow.followed_id],
backref=db.backref('followed', lazy='joined'),
lazy='dynamic',
cascade='all, delete-orphan')

def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super(User, self).__init__(**kwargs)
print(self.email.lower())


I was able to cut the problem line of code down to getting NoneType error on self.email so I've clipped the init function to just initialize and then try to call the problem variable. Then, I can replicate from flask shell:

>>> u = User(email="test@test.com")
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
File "<string>", line 4, in __init__
File "/home/eskimotv/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/state.py", line 433, in _initialize_instance
manager.dispatch.init_failure(self, args, kwargs)
File "/home/eskimotv/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/sqlalchemy/util/langhelpers.py", line 68, in __exit__
compat.raise_(
File "/home/eskimotv/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/sqlalchemy/util/compat.py", line 178, in raise_
raise exception
File "/home/eskimotv/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/state.py", line 430, in _initialize_instance
return manager.original_init(*mixed[1:], **kwargs)
File "/home/eskimotv/app/app/models.py", line 109, in __init__
super(User, self).__init__(**kwargs)
File "/home/eskimotv/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/sqlalchemy/ext/declarative/base.py", line 842, in _declarative_constructor
setattr(self, k, kwargs[k])
File "/home/eskimotv/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/attributes.py", line 272, in __set__
self.impl.set(
File "/home/eskimotv/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/attributes.py", line 865, in set
value = self.fire_replace_event(
File "/home/eskimotv/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/attributes.py", line 873, in fire_replace_event
value = fn(
File "/home/eskimotv/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/events.py", line 2162, in wrap
fn(target, *arg)
File "/home/eskimotv/app/app/models.py", line 216, in on_changed_email
target.avatar_hash = target.gravatar_hash()
File "/home/eskimotv/app/app/models.py", line 212, in gravatar_hash
return hashlib.md5(self.email.lower().strip().encode('utf-8')).hexdigest()
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'lower'


Can anyone help me understand why that variable is not being set in the instance of the object?

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