Please explain “Task was destroyed but it is pending!” after cancelling tasks

The problem comes from closing the loop immediately after cancelling the tasks. As the cancel() docs state

“This arranges for a CancelledError to be thrown into the wrapped coroutine on the next cycle through the event loop.”

Take this snippet of code:

import asyncio
import signal


async def pending_doom():
    await asyncio.sleep(2)
    print(">> Cancelling tasks now")
    for task in asyncio.Task.all_tasks():
        task.cancel()

    print(">> Done cancelling tasks")
    asyncio.get_event_loop().stop()


def ask_exit():
    for task in asyncio.Task.all_tasks():
        task.cancel()


async def looping_coro():
    print("Executing coroutine")
    while True:
        try:
            await asyncio.sleep(0.25)
        except asyncio.CancelledError:
            print("Got CancelledError")
            break

        print("Done waiting")

    print("Done executing coroutine")
    asyncio.get_event_loop().stop()


def main():
    asyncio.async(pending_doom())
    asyncio.async(looping_coro())

    loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
    for sig in (signal.SIGINT, signal.SIGTERM):
        loop.add_signal_handler(sig, ask_exit)

    loop.run_forever()

    # I had to manually remove the handlers to
    # avoid an exception on BaseEventLoop.__del__
    for sig in (signal.SIGINT, signal.SIGTERM):
        loop.remove_signal_handler(sig)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Notice ask_exit cancels the tasks but does not stop the loop, on the next cycle looping_coro() stops it. The output if you cancel it is:

Executing coroutine
Done waiting
Done waiting
Done waiting
Done waiting
^CGot CancelledError
Done executing coroutine

Notice how pending_doom cancels and stops the loop immediately after. If you let it run until the pending_doom coroutines awakes from the sleep you can see the same warning you’re getting:

Executing coroutine
Done waiting
Done waiting
Done waiting
Done waiting
Done waiting
Done waiting
Done waiting
>> Cancelling tasks now
>> Done cancelling tasks
Task was destroyed but it is pending!
task: <Task pending coro=<looping_coro() running at canceling_coroutines.py:24> wait_for=<Future cancelled>>