Django South error with initial migration

Question

I have a new Django 1.3 project and app that I've created. I added south to my settings.py and have not yet run syncdb. When I execute the following commands per the South tutorial and documentation, I received the error shown below.

• Any thoughts on what's causing the problem? Update: Not properly installing South (see answer).
• Is South 0.7.3 compatible with Django 1.3? Update: Yes.

Commands Executed and South Error

$ python ./manage.py schemamigration qexpenses --initial
Creating migrations directory at '/Users/matthew/development/quest-projects/qexpense-tracker/quexptrkr/../quexptrkr/qexpenses/migrations'...
Creating __init__.py in '/Users/matthew/development/quest-projects/qexpense-tracker/quexptrkr/../quexptrkr/qexpenses/migrations'...
 + Added model qexpenses.Buyer
 + Added model qexpenses.Vendor
 + Added model qexpenses.Department
 + Added model qexpenses.Project
 + Added model qexpenses.PurchaseType
 + Added model qexpenses.PurchaseOrder
Created 0001_initial.py. You can now apply this migration with: ./manage.py migrate qexpenses
(qexpense-tracker)matthew@Matthew-Rankins-MacBook-Pro:~/development/quest-projects/qexpense-tracker/quexptrkr
$ python ./manage.py migrate
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./manage.py", line 14, in <module>
    execute_manager(settings)
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 438, in execute_manager
    utility.execute()
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 379, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 191, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 220, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/south/management/commands/migrate.py", line 105, in handle
    ignore_ghosts = ignore_ghosts,
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/south/migration/__init__.py", line 171, in migrate_app
    applied = check_migration_histories(applied, delete_ghosts, ignore_ghosts)
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/south/migration/__init__.py", line 72, in check_migration_histories
    for h in histories:
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 107, in _result_iter
    self._fill_cache()
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 772, in _fill_cache
    self._result_cache.append(self._iter.next())
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 273, in iterator
    for row in compiler.results_iter():
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/compiler.py", line 680, in results_iter
    for rows in self.execute_sql(MULTI):
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/compiler.py", line 735, in execute_sql
    cursor.execute(sql, params)
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/util.py", line 34, in execute
    return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
  File "/Users/matthew/.virtualenvs/qexpense-tracker/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/sqlite3/base.py", line 234, in execute
    return Database.Cursor.execute(self, query, params)
django.db.utils.DatabaseError: no such table: south_migrationhistory
(qexpense-tracker)matthew@Matthew-Rankins-MacBook-Pro:~/development/quest-projects/qexpense-tracker/quexptrkr
$ 

Configuration

I'm running OS X 10.6.7. Below is the output of pip 1.0 requirements.txt for my virtualenv:

$ cat requirements.txt 
Django==1.3
South==0.7.3
distribute==0.6.15
virtualenv==1.6
virtualenvwrapper==2.6.3
wsgiref==0.1.2

Answer 1

Ken Cochrane's answer to the StackOverflow question How Come My South Migrations Doesn't Work for Django held the key.

For a new Django project and app, I had to perform the following steps:

1. Add South to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py, but do not add your apps
2. Run syncdb to add the Django and South tables to the database. South modifies syncdb, so it's important to have South in your INSTALLED_APPS.
3. Add apps to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py
4. Run python manage.py schemamigration app_name --initial for each app
5. Run python manage.py migrate app_name

Read the instructions—No, all of the instructions

I was so excited to start using South that I skipped reading the installation documentation. I simply installed South using pip install south and then just added it to my INSTALLED_APPS. That was my mistake.

The Configuring Your Django Installation section of the installation documentation states:

Once South is added in, you’ll need to run ./manage.py syncdb to make the South migration-tracking tables (South doesn’t use migrations for its own models, for various reasons).