I am writing codes for opening file dialog to select a file by clicking a button. The function I used was "askopenfilename()" in tkinter.filedialog module. However, a warning displayed when I ran the code. And, the file filter option was also disabled after one click. The displayed warning was below.

To help us to reproduce the issue, please give your Python version, Tcl/Tk patchlevel (`tkinter.test.support.get_tk_patchlevel()`), MacOS version and a small demonstration script (along with exact keystrokes/clicks if necessary). I suspect this is another Tcl/Tk issue rather than a tkinter problem with this warning being because the MacOS API has changed slightly.

The versions of Python, Tcl/Tk and MacOS I used are 3.8.5, 8.5.9 and the newest Catalina 10.15.6, respectively. 

Your words give me a hint about the version of Tcl/Tk. So I checked it. The version I used seems too old, the newest version for it is 8.6. In my thoughts, I always thought those embedded packages could be automatically upgraded after I re-installed a newer python. However, it seems the packages are not be updated as expected.

Ned, does it appear like Python is using the MacOS built-in Tcl version? My (very limited) understanding is that Python will default to the Tcl version packaged with it (which is currently 8.6.8).

Yes, you are right. Just now, I re-installed Python3.8.5. But when I opened my .py file with tkinter and ran it, it still linked to the old Tcl/Tk(8.5.9) in Python3.7.5. However, when I ran the command "python3 -m tkinter" to check its version. It showed me the new version 8.6. My understanding is that when a newer python is installed, the old files are not replaced. Both of them are kept in computer. Is it right? So, I should manually remove those old files, right?

How did you install Python? Did you use the installer on Python.org or some other method?

A script that demonstrates the problem would be useful as well, I've tried to reproduce the problem in an interactive session in the terminal:

>>> from tkinter import filedialog
>>> filedialog.askopenfilename()

This works for me, I also don't get the warning in the attached image.

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Which version of Tk is used depends on how Python is installed. The Python.org installers ship with a copy of Tk for use by Tkinter. Every version (3.7, 3.8, ...) you install ships with its own copy of Tk and won't use the copy of Tk from a different install.

Other distributions of Python (home-brew, anaconda, ...) might arrange thing differently.

Sorry, I forget how I installed the old python 3.7.5, but I installed the new python 3.8.5 using the downloaded installer from Python.org. Besides, I checked the "Tcl" under the path: "/System/Library/Tcl", its version still is 8.5. I think my code used the library here, and this is the reason why the warning showed.

the version of Tk in /System is not relevant, as I wrote the Tkinter in the Python.org installer uses a copy of Tcl/Tk that's installed by the Python.org installer (somewhere in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework).

This can be checked using the otool(1) command:

$ otool -vL /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/lib-dynload/_tkinter.cpython-38-darwin.so 
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/lib-dynload/_tkinter.cpython-38-darwin.so:
	/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/libtcl8.6.dylib (compatibility version 8.6.0, current version 8.6.8)
	/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/libtk8.6.dylib (compatibility version 8.6.0, current version 8.6.8)
	/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1197.1.1)


As you can see _tkinter is linked with Tcl/Tk 8.6 inside the Python framework. 

I'm also using the Python.org installer (although the system I tested on has a slightly out of date copy of Python 3.8) and don't get this warning. That might be because I've been testing something different from what you're doing. 

Could you attach a script that demonstrates the problem?

Sorry, maybe I missed to share a critical point that I wrote Python codes using “VS Code” software, rather than IDEL. That warning only showed in VS Code software when I ran it. After I re-opened my code in IDEL and ran it again. No any warnings or errors existed at all.

Weird. Maybe VS Code uses a different Python installation? You can add "import sys; print(sys.prefix)" to your script to check.

It is also very weird to me. I checked the python version used in VS code, the version in use was 3.8. But it seems the used Tcl/Tk package still linked to the system-embedded Tck/Tk 8.5.9 on macOS. 

I found this description from "https://www.python.org/download/mac/tcltk/", which may help us know more. Anyway, this warning doesn't affect running codes too much.

But does VS Code use the installation of 3.8 your expecting (the one in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework)?

I'm closing the issue because this appears to be a problem with 3th-party code (VS Code), not with the Python.org installer.

Yes, I agree with you.