Django not sending emails to admins

Question

According to the documentation, if DEBUG is set to False and something is provided under the ADMINS setting, Django will send an email

Answer 1

I had the same situation. I created a new project and app and it worked, so I knew it was my code. I tracked it down to the LOGGING dictionary in settings.py. I had made some changes a few weeks back for logging with Sentry, but for some reason the error just started today. I changed back to the original and got it working:

LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'handlers': {
        'mail_admins': {
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'class': 'django.utils.log.AdminEmailHandler'
        }
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django.request': {
            'handlers': ['mail_admins'],
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'propagate': True,
        },
    }
}

Then, I made some changes slowly and got it working with Sentry and emailing the ADMINS as well.

Additionally, the LOGGING configuration gets merged with DEFAULT_LOGGING by default, so it's useful to have a look at the source code of django.utils.log.DEFAULT_LOGGING to understand what else may have an effect on your particular situation.