What's the bad magic number error?

Question

What\'s the \"Bad magic number\" ImportError in python, and how do I fix it?

The only thing I can find online suggests this is caused by compiling a .py -> .pyc file

Answer 1

This can also be due to missing __init__.py file from the directory. Say if you create a new directory in django for seperating the unit tests into multiple files and place them in one directory then you also have to create the __init__.py file beside all the other files in new created test directory. otherwise it can give error like Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35\Lib\unittest\loader.py",line 153, in loadTestsFromName module = __import__(module_name) ImportError: bad magic number in 'APPNAME.tests': b'\x03\xf3\r\n'