Django Queryset exclude() not working as expected with Q expressions

I’m trying to exclude some Project objects from my queryset using two different methods: one based on IDs and the other using a Q expression on annotated data. However, I’m getting different results from each approach, and I can’t figure out why. The version with the Q expression returns an empty queryset, even though it shouldn’t.

Here’s the relevant code:

def check_exclusion():
    # Subquery to get the latest active ReportCalculation message for each project
    latest_calc_message = ReportCalculation.objects.filter(
        project=OuterRef('pk'), 
        is_active=True
    ).order_by('-id').values('message')[:1]

    # Annotate projects with the latest calculation message
    projects_with_messages = Project.objects.annotate(
        latest_message=Subquery(latest_calc_message)
    ).filter(
        end_date__lt=date.today(),  # Project must have ended
        is_active=True  # Project must be active
    ).distinct()

    # Exclude based on latest_message
    excluded_projects = projects_with_messages.filter(
        Q(latest_message__in=("Scheduled.", "Finished successfully.", "Processing ..."))
        | Q(latest_message__startswith="Error")
    ).distinct()
    
    ids = excluded_projects.values_list("id", flat=True)

    # Exclude using Q expression directly on the annotated field
    remaining_projects = projects_with_messages.exclude(
        Q(latest_message__in=("Scheduled.", "Finished successfully.", "Processing ..."))
        | Q(latest_message__startswith="Error")
    ).values('id', 'latest_message')  # Get IDs and messages for verification
    
    print(projects_with_messages.exclude(id__in=ids))  # First method using IDs
    print(remaining_projects.values_list("id", flat=True))  # Second method using Q expression

    return list(excluded_projects), list(remaining_projects)

What I’m observing:

1. When excluding projects by IDs (i.e., exclude(id__in=ids)), the exclusion works as expected.
2. When using the Q expression directly on latest_message (exclude(Q(...))), it results in an empty queryset, which shouldn’t happen.

What I expected:

Both exclusion methods should return the same results, or at least similar. But right now, the second approach using Q expression returns nothing, and I can’t figure out why.

Does anyone know why the Q expression behaves this way? Could there be something wrong with how I’m annotating or filtering the data?