Django newbie deployment question - ImportError: Could not import settings 'settings'

Question

Hello folks,

The app runs fine using django internal server however when I use apache + mod_python I get the below error

---

  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 75, in __init__
    raise ImportError, "Could not import settings '%s' (Is it on sys.path? Does it have syntax errors?): %s" % (self.SETTINGS_MODULE, e)

ImportError: Could not import settings 'settings' (Is it on sys.path? Does it have syntax errors?): No module named settings

---

Here is the needed information

1) Project directory: /root/djangoprojects/mysite

2) directory listing of /root/djangoprojects/mysite

ls -ltr
total 28
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  546 Aug  1 08:34 manage.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    0 Aug  1 08:34 __init__.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  136 Aug  1 08:35 __init__.pyc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2773 Aug  1 08:39 settings.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1660 Aug  1 08:53 settings.pyc
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug  1 09:04 polls
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  581 Aug  1 10:06 urls.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  314 Aug  1 10:07 urls.pyc

3) App directory : /root/djangoprojects/mysite/polls

4) directory listing of /root/djangoprojects/mysite/polls

ls -ltr
total 20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 514 Aug  1 08:53 tests.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  57 Aug  1 08:53 models.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   0 Aug  1 08:53 __init__.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 128 Aug  1 09:02 views.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 375 Aug  1 09:04 views.pyc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 132 Aug  1 09:04 __init__.pyc

5) Anywhere in the filesystem running import django in python interpreter works fine

6) content of httpd.conf

<Location "/mysite">
    SetHandler python-program
    PythonHandler django.core.handlers.modpython
    SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE settings
    PythonOption django.root /mysite
    PythonPath "['/root/djangoprojects/', '/root/djangoprojects/mysite','/root/djangoprojects/mysite/polls', '/var/www'] + sys.path"
    PythonDebug On
</Location>

7) PYTHONPATH variable is set to

echo $PYTHONPATH
/root/djangoprojects/mysite

8) DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE is set to

echo $DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
mysite.settings

9) content of sys.path is

import sys
>>> sys.path
['', '/root/djangoprojects/mysite', '/usr/lib/python2.6', '/usr/lib/python2.6/plat-linux2', '/usr/lib/python2.6/lib-tk', '/usr/lib/python2.6/lib-old', '/usr/lib/python2.6/lib-dynload', '/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages', '/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages']

How do I add settings location to sys.path such that it persistent across sessions ?

I have read umpteen no of post with people having the same issue it and I have tried a lot completely beats me as to what I need to do.

Looking for some help.

Thanks in advance Ankur Gupta

Answer 1

Your apache configuration should look like this:

<Location "/mysite">
    SetHandler python-program
    PythonHandler django.core.handlers.modpython
    SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE mysite.settings
    PythonOption django.root /mysite
    PythonPath "['/root/djangoprojects/', '/root/djangoprojects/mysite','/root/djangoprojects/mysite/polls', '/var/www'] + sys.path"
    PythonDebug On
</Location>

Note that the sole difference is the "mysite.settings". Don't forget to restart apache once the config has changed (apache2ctl restart). See http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/deployment/modpython/ for more info.

Answer 2

Try changing to the following:

<Location "/mysite">
    SetHandler python-program
    PythonHandler django.core.handlers.modpython
    SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE mysite.settings
    PythonOption django.root /mysite
    PythonPath "['/root/djangoprojects', '/var/www'] + sys.path"
    PythonDebug On
</Location>

Use no "/" at the end of the PythonPath entries (that may be an issue, I had problems with that at least on Windows).

The entries '/root/djangoprojects/mysite','/root/djangoprojects/mysite/polls' are not needed since you will be referring to your modules by full name (i.e. mysite.sttings means the settings module inside the mysite package, which is the correct way to access it in the PythonPath /root/djangoprojects).