django import error – No module named core.management

Question:

Ok, I see plenty of these errors around. I have tried everything I know to do and have yet to figure this out.

I am working on a development server running python 2.5 and Django 1.3. Django 1.3 was installed using python setup.py install after unpacking the tar.gz download.

All works well, I seldom have the need to run manage.py but am trying to use the new staticfiles app and am running into problems.

python manage.py collectstatic
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 2, in <module>
    from django.core.management import execute_manager
ImportError: No module named core.management

Ok, so I have PATH issue.

From Django install I double check my site-packages directory.

python -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print get_python_lib()"
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages

Ok, let’s check out what I have, echo $PYTHON_PATH was empty, so I set it

export PYTHON_PATH=/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django

Still no luck. Lets check what sys.path has to say

>>> import sys
>>> print sys.path
['', '/usr/lib/python2.5', '/usr/lib/python2.5/plat-linux2', '/usr/lib/python2.5/lib-tk', '/usr/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/PIL', '/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django', '/var/lib/python-support/python2.5']

path is there, I even created /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django.pth with contents

cat /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django.pth 
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/

Anyone got an clues to what is going on here?

I found a symlink further up the path that was getting in the way, but no on to a new error.

python manage.py collectstatic
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 14, in <module>
    execute_manager(settings)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 438, in execute_manager
    utility.execute()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 349, in execute
    version=get_version(),
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django/__init__.py", line 12, in get_version
    from django.utils.version import get_svn_revision
ImportError: No module named utils.version

I also tried creating a new project to see if there were any issues there and get the same utils.version error.

Side node: Unode from #django helped me a bit, set up virtualenv on same machine and got past the errors so still not sure what is up with this actual install here, but it seems to not be in the django projects but in the django/python install.

Asked By: grantk

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Answers:

Please, reinstall django with pip:

sudo pip install --upgrade django==1.3

(Replace 1.3 to your django version)

Answered By: satels

your project is created using an old version of django-admin.py, older than django1.3

to fix this create another django project and copy its manage.py and paste it in the old one

Answered By: MBarsi

As known this was a path issue.

the base of my custom packages shared a name with a directory set in a /etc/profile. The packages were in a different location however for the webserver. So I removed the offending entries from my $PYTHONPATH and was good to go!

Thanks for the help.

Answered By: grantk

I had a similar problem. PyCharm couldn’t run the server but I could run it from the command line. I tried which python and then made sure that PyCharm was same interpreter and then everything worked OK.

Answered By: Trip Denton

If, like me, you are running your django in a virtualenv, and getting this error, look at your manage.py.
The first line should define the python executable used to run the script.
This should be the path to your virtualenv’s python, but it is something wrong like /usr/bin/python, which is not the same path and will use the global python environment (and packages will be missing).
Just change the path into the path to the python executable in your virtualenv.

You can also replace your shebang line with #!/usr/bin/env python. This should use the proper python environment and interpreter provided that you activate your virtualenv first (I assume you know how to do this).

Answered By: Steve K

For me, my server was using Python 2.4. I simply looked up Python 2.7, which was installed on my server, and created an alias.

alias python=python2.7

If you need to know more, I found the solution here

Answered By: el_stack

Another possible reason for this problem is that your OS runs python3 by default.

Either you have to explicitly do: python2 manage.py

or you need to edit the shebang of manage.py, like so:

#!/usr/bin/env python2

or if you are using python3:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
Answered By: nuts

Try change your first line of manage.py.

Change

#!/usr/bin/python

by

#!/usr/bin/env python
Answered By: Gabriel Cavalcante

Agreed completely that this is a path issue but fwiw, I had this same error. It was due to the mistake of using a relative path for my Python executable when setting up my virtual environment. I had done this:

virtualenv -p ~/python_runtimes/2.7.3/bin/python venv2.7.3 --distribute

Instead I had to give the full path to the Python executable.

HTH,
Harlin

Answered By: Harlin

source ~/blog-venv/bin/activate

pick your virtualenv to replace “blog-venv” here.

Answered By: windmaomao

If you are in a virtualenv you need to activate it before you can run ./manage.py ‘command’

source path/to/your/virtualenv/bin/activate

if you config workon in .bash_profile or .bashrc

workon yourvirtualenvname

*please dont edit your manage.py file maybe works by isnt the correct way and could give you future errors

Answered By: elin3t

Be sure you’re running the right instance of Python with the right directories on the path. In my case, this error resulted from running the python executable by accident – I had actually installed Django under the python2.7 framework & libraries. The same could happen as a result of virtualenv as well.

Answered By: Chris Johnson

I had the same problem because I was installing Django as a super user, thus not in my virtualenv. You should not do sudo pip install Django

Instead, install it this way:

$ source ./bin/activate
$ pip install Django
Answered By: aviggiano

For those of you using Django 1.6 or newer, note that execute_manager was removed. There is a solution posted in the second SO answer here.

Answered By: Owen

I was getting the same problem while I trying to create a new app. If you write python manage.py startapp myapp, then it looks for usr/bin/python. But you need this “python” which is located in /bin directory of your virtual env path. I solved this by mentioning the virtualenv’s python path just like this:

<env path>/bin/python manage.py startapp myapp
Answered By: Tarique

Okay so it goes like this:

You have created a virtual environment and django module belongs to that environment only.Since virtualenv isolates itself from everything else,hence you are seeing this.

go through this for further assistance:

http://www.swegler.com/becky/blog/2011/08/27/python-django-mysql-on-windows-7-part-i-getting-started/

1.You can switch to the directory where your virtual environment is stored and then run the django module.

2.Alternatively you can install django globally to your python->site-packages by either running pip or easy_install

Command using pip: pip install django

then do this:

import django
print (django.get_version()) (depending on which version of python you use.This for python 3+ series)

and then you can run this:
python manage.py runserver
and check on your web browser by typing :localhost:8000
and you should see django powered page.

Hope this helps.

Answered By: Ashish

This error usually occurs when django is not installed.
If you have already installed django but still getting the same error, then you must be working in separate virtual environment. You need to install django in your virtual environmnent as well. When you are in shell of virtual machine simply do this:

pip install django

It is because virtual machine has separate file system, it doesn’t recognize django even if it is installed on your system.

Answered By: Rai Ammad Khan

I fixed this problem by changing #PATH=”$VIRTUAL_ENV/bin:$PATH” to PATH=”$PATH:$VIRTUAL_ENV/bin”
For reasons not obvious to me the python executable in the virtualenv dir does not see django but the normally installed python does.

Answered By: Lowlysquib

You are probably using virtualenvwrapper. Don’t forget to select your enviroment by running:

$ workon env_name
Answered By: M K

Store the python python path in a variable and execute.This would include the otherwise missing packages.

python_path= `which python` 
$python_path manage.py runserver
Answered By: Nischay Gulati

I included the name of the new App to the INSTALLED_APPS list in the settings.py “before” I issued the startapp command. Once I removed the list entry, I could create the app.

Answered By: Milad M

all of you guys didn’t mention a case where someone “like me” would install django befor installing virtualenv…so for all the people of my kind ther if you did that…reinstall django after activating the virtualenv..i hope this helps

Answered By: oajmi

Solved it!!!

After searching for ages and trying all these other suggestions which didn’t work, I finally found the solution for my setup.

My setup/scenario:

  • Windows, Python27
  • My django project is checked out via svn
  • when running python manage.py runserver in the new folder, I got the import error
  • python manage.py runserver used to work in the original folder (which I would commit changes from) until I deleted it

Solution

Remove any the folder named django in the same directory of manage.py

Thats right…as soon as I removed the folder “django” which only contained a __init__.py file…I could run the server again!

Have no idea why though

Answered By: Dan

I had this error while trying to run an embedded system (using django of course) on a Raspberry Pi 2 (and not a VM)

Running this:

 sudo pip install Django

Made the trick!

  • just in case a fellow using Raspbian/Jessie gets this
Answered By: d1jhoni1b

I solved this problem by using ‘django-admin’ command as following instead:

django-admin startproject _project_name

just remove the “.py” attached to “django-admin”

Answered By: Haziq
python3 manage.py runserver

Check version of Python

Answered By: user1464878

Having an application called site can reproduce this issue either.

==================================SOLUTION=========================================

First goto: virtualenv

by running the command:
source bin/activate

and install django because you are getting the error related to ‘import django’:

pip install django

Then run:

python manage.py runserver

(Note: please change ‘runserver’ to the program name you want to run)

For the same issue, it worked in my case.
==================================Synopsis=========================================

ERROR:
(Development) Rakeshs-MacBook-Pro:src rakesh$ python manage.py runserver
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 8, in <module>
    from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'django'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 14, in <module>
    import django
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'django'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 17, in <module>
    "Couldn't import Django. Are you sure it's installed and "
ImportError: Couldn't import Django. Are you sure it's installed and available on your PYTHONPATH environment variable? Did you forget to activate a virtual environment?
(Development) Rakeshs-MacBook-Pro:src rakesh$ 
(Development) Rakeshs-MacBook-Pro:src rakesh$ 
(Development) Rakeshs-MacBook-Pro:src rakesh$ python -Wall manage.py test
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 8, in <module>
    from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'django'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 14, in <module>
    import django
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'django'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 17, in <module>
    "Couldn't import Django. Are you sure it's installed and "
ImportError: Couldn't import Django. Are you sure it's installed and available on your PYTHONPATH environment variable? Did you forget to activate a virtual environment?

AFTER INSTALLATION of django:

(Development) MacBook-Pro:src rakesh$ pip install django
Collecting django
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/51/1a/e0ac7886c7123a03814178d7517dc822af0fe51a72e1a6bff26153103322/Django-2.1-py3-none-any.whl (7.3MB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 7.3MB 1.1MB/s 
Collecting pytz (from django)
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/30/4e/27c34b62430286c6d59177a0842ed90dc789ce5d1ed740887653b898779a/pytz-2018.5-py2.py3-none-any.whl (510kB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 512kB 4.7MB/s 
Installing collected packages: pytz, django

AFTER RESOLVING:

(Development) MacBook-Pro:src rakesh$ python manage.py runserver
Performing system checks...

System check identified no issues (0 silenced).

You have 15 unapplied migration(s). Your project may not work properly until you apply the migrations for app(s): admin, auth, contenttypes, sessions.
Run 'python manage.py migrate' to apply them.

August 05, 2018 - 04:39:02
Django version 2.1, using settings 'trydjango.settings'
Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CONTROL-C.
[05/Aug/2018 04:39:15] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 16348
[05/Aug/2018 04:39:15] "GET /static/admin/css/fonts.css HTTP/1.1" 200 423
[05/Aug/2018 04:39:15] "GET /static/admin/fonts/Roboto-Bold-webfont.woff HTTP/1.1" 200 82564
[05/Aug/2018 04:39:15] "GET /static/admin/fonts/Roboto-Light-webfont.woff HTTP/1.1" 200 81348
[05/Aug/2018 04:39:15] "GET /static/admin/fonts/Roboto-Regular-webfont.woff HTTP/1.1" 200 80304
Not Found: /favicon.ico
[05/Aug/2018 04:39:16] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 1976

Good luck!!

Answered By: Rakesh Kumar

I got this due to forgetting that I installed Django using pip -U, so it was only available to the user running my Django app. To run manage.py I had to do

sudo su -s /bin/bash MY_DJANGO_USER
/PATH/TO/MY/APP/manage.py
Answered By: EM0

Just a single mistake
This happened with me as well. My mistake was that I’ve created Django project before creating virtual env, later activated the env and was trying to start the server. Just install Django after activating env it will work

Answered By: Ayaan Ansari

environment: Python 3.9.6, Django 3.2.6, VS Code

Just disable Pylance extension and reload your VS Code.

Answered By: Michael Zhang

That’s an interpreter error.

If you are using vscode then just follow these steps:

  • View
  • Command palette
  • Search for python
  • Select interpreter
  • Select windows store and your problem will get solved, after few seconds the errors have gone.

This problem occurs due to path changed.

Answered By: kanishk yadav