Django Shell No module named settings

Question

I\'ve deployed Django to Apache via mod_wsgi. Django is running fine when hosted from Apache. However, I\'m trying to do some maintenance via manage.py

Answer 1

This can happen if your root directory name is the same as the name of one of your apps. For example here I have a directory called bar containing a Django project with an app also called bar:

Simons-MacBook-Pro ~/temp
$ cd bar

Simons-MacBook-Pro ~/temp/bar
$ ./manage.py shell
Error: Could not import settings 'bar.settings' (Is it on sys.path?): No module named settings

Simons-MacBook-Pro ~/temp/bar
$ ls -l
total 48
-rw-r--r--  1 simon  staff     0 25 Oct 10:46 __init__.py
-rw-r--r--  1 simon  staff   130 25 Oct 10:46 __init__.pyc
drwxr-xr-x  7 simon  staff   238 25 Oct 10:46 bar
-rwxr-xr-x  1 simon  staff   503 25 Oct 10:46 manage.py
-rw-r--r--  1 simon  staff  5025 25 Oct 10:46 settings.py
-rw-r--r--  1 simon  staff  2658 25 Oct 10:46 settings.pyc
-rw-r--r--  1 simon  staff   556 25 Oct 10:46 urls.py

Changing the root directory's name to foo (or anything else other than bar) solves the problem:

Simons-MacBook-Pro ~/temp/bar
$ cd ..

Simons-MacBook-Pro ~/temp
$ mv bar foo

Simons-MacBook-Pro ~/temp
$ cd foo

Simons-MacBook-Pro ~/temp/foo
$ ./manage.py shell
Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, Jun 16 2011, 16:59:05) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Based on Apple Inc. build 5658) (LLVM build 2335.15.00)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
(InteractiveConsole)
>>>