Django DB Settings Improperly Configured Error

Question

Django  1 5  is workin  fine for me  but when I fire up the Python interpreter  Python 3  to check some things  I get the weirdest error when I try importing - from django contrib auth models import User -   Traceback  most recent call last     File   usr local lib python3 2 dist-packages django conf   init   py   line 36  in  setup     settings module   os environ ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE    File   usr lib python3 2 os py   line 450  in   getitem       value   self  data self encodekey key   KeyError  b DJANGO SETTINGS MODULE   During handling of the above exception  another exception occurred   Traceback  most recent call last     File   lt stdin gt    line 1  in  lt module gt    File   usr local lib python3 2 dist-packages django contrib auth models py   line 8  in  lt module gt      from django db import models   File   usr local lib python3 2 dist-packages django db   init   py   line 11  in  lt module gt      if settings DATABASES and DEFAULT DB ALIAS not in settings DATABASES    File   usr local lib python3 2 dist-packages django conf   init   py   line 52  in   getattr       self  setup name    File   usr local lib python3 2 dist-packages django conf   init   py   line 45  in  setup        desc  ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE    django core exceptions ImproperlyConfigured  Requested setting DATABASES     but settings are not configured  You must either define the environment    variable DJANGO SETTINGS MODULE or call settings configure      before accessing settings    How could it be improperly configured  when it works fine outside the Python interpreter  In my Django settings  the DATABASES settings are   DATABASES          default              ENGINE    django db backends postgresql psycopg2     Add  postgresql psycopg2    mysql    sqlite3  or  oracle            NAME    django db     Or path to database file if using sqlite3            The following settings are not used with sqlite3           USER    zamphatta            PASSWORD    mypassword91            HOST         Empty for localhost through domain sockets or  127 0 0 1  for localhost through TCP           PORT         Set to empty string for default               how is this improperly configured

User · Accepted Answer

You can t just fire up Python and check things  Django doesn t know what project you want to work on  You have to do one of these things    Use python manage py shell Use django-admin py shell --settings mysite settings  or whatever settings module you use  Set DJANGO SETTINGS MODULE environment variable in your OS to mysite settings  This is removed in Django 1 6  Use setup environ in the python interpreter   from django core management import setup environ from mysite import settings  setup environ settings     Naturally  the first way is the easiest

User · Answer

In your python shell ipython do   from django conf import settings  settings configure

User · Answer

For people using IntelliJ  with these settings I was able to query from the shell  on windows

User · Answer

In my case  I got this when trying to run Django tests through PyCharm  I think it is because PyCharm does not load the initial Django project settings  i e  those that manage py shell runs initially  One can add them to the start of the testing script or just run the tests using manage py test   Versions    Python 3 5  in virtualenv  PyCharm 2016 3 2 Professional Django 1 10

User · Answer

in my own case in django 1 10 1 running on python2 7 11  I was trying to start the server using django-admin runserver instead of manage py runserver in my project directory

User · Answer

On Django 1 9  I tried django-admin runserver and got the same error  but when I used python manage py runserver I got the intended result  This may solve this error for a lot of people

User · Answer

In 2017 with django 1 11 5 and python 3 6  from the comment this also works with Python 2 7     import django import os os environ setdefault  DJANGO SETTINGS MODULE    mysite settings   django setup     The  py in which you put this code should be in mysite  the parent one

[python] Django DB Settings 'Improperly Configured' Error

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