H2OFrame converts dict to all zeros
It seems the Pandas DataFrame to H2OFrame conversion works fine outside Django, but fails inside Django. The problem might be with Django's pre_save not allowing the writing/reading of the temporary .csv file that H2O creates when ingesting a python object. A possible workaround is to explicitly write the Pandas DataFrame to a .csv file with model_data_frame.to_csv(<path>, index=False) and then import the file into H2O with h2o.import_file(<path>).
I am taking input values from a django model admin screen and on pre_save calling h2o to do predictions for other values and save them. 
Currently I convert my input from pandas (trying to work with sklearn preprocessing easily here) by using:
modelH2OFrame = h2o.H2OFrame(python_obj = model_data_frame.to_dict('list')) 
It parses and loads. Hell it even creates a frame with values when I do it step by step.
BUT. When I run this inside of the Django pre_save, the H2OFrame comes back completely empty. 
Ideas for why this may be happening? Sometimes I get errors connecting to the h2o cluster or timeouts--maybe that is a related issue? I load the H2O models in the pre_save call and do the predictions, allocate them to model fields, and then shut down the h2o cluster (in one function).