ImproperlyConfigured: You must either define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or call settings.configure() before accessing settings

Question

I was trying to configure my django project to deploy to heroku. I am getting the following error and I don't really know how to fix it.

Here is the full traceback and error:

22:46:15 web.1  | Traceback (most recent call last):
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gunicorn/arbiter.py", line 495, in spawn_worker
22:46:15 web.1  |     worker.init_process()
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gunicorn/workers/base.py", line 106, in init_process
22:46:15 web.1  |     self.wsgi = self.app.wsgi()
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gunicorn/app/base.py", line 114, in wsgi
22:46:15 web.1  |     self.callable = self.load()
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gunicorn/app/wsgiapp.py", line 62, in load
22:46:15 web.1  |     return self.load_wsgiapp()
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gunicorn/app/wsgiapp.py", line 49, in load_wsgiapp
22:46:15 web.1  |     return util.import_app(self.app_uri)
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gunicorn/util.py", line 354, in import_app
22:46:15 web.1  |     __import__(module)
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/nirla/wsgi.py", line 12, in <module>
22:46:15 web.1  |     from dj_static import Cling
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/dj_static.py", line 7, in <module>
22:46:15 web.1  |     from django.contrib.staticfiles.handlers import StaticFilesHandler as DebugHandler
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/handlers.py", line 8, in <module>
22:46:15 web.1  |     from django.contrib.staticfiles.views import serve
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/views.py", line 13, in <module>
22:46:15 web.1  |     from django.views import static
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/views/static.py", line 96, in <module>
22:46:15 web.1  |     template_translatable = ugettext_noop("Index of %(directory)s")
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/utils/translation/__init__.py", line 65, in gettext_noop
22:46:15 web.1  |     return _trans.gettext_noop(message)
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/utils/translation/__init__.py", line 52, in __getattr__
22:46:15 web.1  |     if settings.USE_I18N:
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 54, in __getattr__
22:46:15 web.1  |     self._setup(name)
22:46:15 web.1  |   File "/Users/nir/nirla/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 47, in _setup
22:46:15 web.1  |     % (desc, ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE))
22:46:15 web.1  | ImproperlyConfigured: Requested setting USE_I18N, but settings are not configured. You must either define the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE or call settings.configure() before accessing settings.

Here is my wsgi.py file:

import os
from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
from dj_static import Cling

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "nirla.settings") #nirla is the name of the project


application = Cling(get_wsgi_application())

And in case it was relevant, my manage.py file:

import os
import sys

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

        from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line

        execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)

Can anyone seem to understand the issue here? And if so, can you be so kind as to explain what is wrong? Thank you!

Answer 1

I figured that the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE had to be set some way, so I looked at the documentation (link updated) and found:

export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=mysite.settings

Though that is not enough if you are running a server on heroku, you need to specify it there, too. Like this:

heroku config:set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=mysite.settings --account <your account name> 

In my specific case I ran these two and everything worked out:

export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=nirla.settings
heroku config:set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=nirla.settings --account personal

---

Edit

I would also like to point out that you have to re-do this every time you close or restart your virtual environment. Instead, you should automate the process by going to venv/bin/activate and adding the line: set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=mysite.settings to the bottom of the code. From now on every time you activate the virtual environment, you will be using that app's settings.