Configuring Django

Question

I just installed Django 1.6 on OS X 10.8 with python 2.7 and am having trouble going through the tutorial. After setting creating a server called mysite by running:

django-admin.py startproject mysite

I then cd'ed into mysite and ran

python manage.py runserver

and got this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 399, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 392, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 242, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 280, in execute
    translation.activate('en-us')
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/utils/translation/__init__.py", line 130, in activate
    return _trans.activate(language)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py", line 188, in activate
    _active.value = translation(language)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py", line 177, in translation
    default_translation = _fetch(settings.LANGUAGE_CODE)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py", line 159, in _fetch
    app = import_module(appname)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/utils/importlib.py", line 40, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/__init__.py", line 6, in <module>
    from django.contrib.admin.sites import AdminSite, site
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/sites.py", line 4, in <module>
    from django.contrib.admin.forms import AdminAuthenticationForm
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/forms.py", line 6, in <module>
    from django.contrib.auth.forms import AuthenticationForm
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/forms.py", line 17, in <module>
    from django.contrib.auth.models import User
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/models.py", line 361, in <module>
    class AbstractUser(AbstractBaseUser, PermissionsMixin):
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/base.py", line 212, in __new__
    new_class.add_to_class(field.name, copy.deepcopy(field))
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/base.py", line 264, in add_to_class
    value.contribute_to_class(cls, name)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/fields/__init__.py", line 303, in contribute_to_class
    cls._meta.add_field(self)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/options.py", line 172, in add_field
    self.local_fields.insert(bisect(self.local_fields, field), field)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/functools.py", line 56, in <lambda>
    '__lt__': [('__gt__', lambda self, other: other < self),
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/functools.py", line 56, in <lambda>
.........

this error ends up being repeatedly printed until the end:

File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/functools.py", line 56, in '_lt_': [('_gt_', lambda self, other: other < self),

And here are the last few lines of output:

  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/functools.py", line 56, in <lambda>
    '__lt__': [('__gt__', lambda self, other: other < self),
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/functools.py", line 56, in <lambda>
    '__lt__': [('__gt__', lambda self, other: other < self),
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/functools.py", line 56, in <lambda>
    '__lt__': [('__gt__', lambda self, other: other < self),
RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded while calling a Python object

After looking at the last line:

RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded while calling a Python object

I also ran:

django-admin.py check

and got this output:

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Requested setting DEFAULT_INDEX_TABLESPACE, but settings are not configured. You must either define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or call settings.configure() before accessing settings.

I also tried setting my environment variable in tcsh by typing in:

setenv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE "mysite.settings"

but it still gave me the recursion depth error. Running

django-admin.py check

then gave me this error:

ImportError: Could not import settings 'mysite.settings' (Is it on sys.path? Is there an import error in the settings file?): No module named mysite.settings

Here is my settings.py:

"""
Django settings for mysite project.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/ref/settings/
"""

# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)

import os
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))


# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/howto/deployment/checklist/

# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
SECRET_KEY = '3e%g^*y!3$2=ln75%usf2ftjf&urt7&kuj@_-yc+53pjm)$@9^'

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = True

TEMPLATE_DEBUG = True

ALLOWED_HOSTS = []


# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'mysite.urls'

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'mysite.wsgi.application'


# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
    }
}

# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True


# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/howto/static-files/

STATIC_URL = '/static/'

And my file structure:

mysite/
 manage.py
 mysite/
  __init__.py
  settings.py
  urls.py
  __init__.pyc
  settings.pyc
  wsgi.py

I am a newbie at django and am really stuck. Can anyone offer some insight?

Answer 1

Check in manage.py if you have this:

import os

if __name__ == "__main__":
    os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "mysite.settings")

And in wsgi.py this:

import os

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "mysite.settings")

Also, any python scripts that integrate Django should look like this:

import os
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "mysite.settings")
# Uncomment below for Django 1.7 +
#import django
#django.setup()

Answer 2

Ok so I finally found the answer. Apparently the error was a result of Python 2.7.2. Once I upgraded to 2.7.6, the problem went away.

Here is a similar thread where I found the answer:

maximum recursion depth exceeded in cmp error while executing python manage.py runserver

Don't know why this solution didn't show up in my searches when I was creating this thread...