I am trying to set up multiple setting files (development, production, ..) that include some base settings. Cannot succeed though. When I try to run ./manage.py runserver I am getting the following error:

(cb)clime@den /srv/www/cb $ ./manage.py runserver
ImproperlyConfigured: The SECRET_KEY setting must not be empty.

Here is my settings module:

(cb)clime@den /srv/www/cb/cb/settings $ ll
total 24
-rw-rw-r--. 1 clime clime 8230 Oct  2 02:56 base.py
-rw-rw-r--. 1 clime clime  489 Oct  2 03:09 development.py
-rw-rw-r--. 1 clime clime   24 Oct  2 02:34 __init__.py
-rw-rw-r--. 1 clime clime  471 Oct  2 02:51 production.py

Base settings (contain SECRET_KEY):

(cb)clime@den /srv/www/cb/cb/settings $ cat base.py:
# Django base settings for cb project.

import django.conf.global_settings as defaults

DEBUG = False
TEMPLATE_DEBUG = False

INTERNAL_IPS = ('127.0.0.1',)

ADMINS = (
    ('clime', 'clime7@gmail.com'),
)

MANAGERS = ADMINS

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        #'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
        'NAME': 'cwu',                   # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
        'USER': 'clime',                 # Not used with sqlite3.
        'PASSWORD': '',                  # Not used with sqlite3.
        'HOST': '',                      # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
        'PORT': '',                      # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.
    }
}

# Local time zone for this installation. Choices can be found here:
# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_zones_by_name
# although not all choices may be available on all operating systems.
# In a Windows environment this must be set to your system time zone.
TIME_ZONE = 'Europe/Prague'

# Language code for this installation. All choices can be found here:
# http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/language-identifiers.html
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

SITE_ID = 1

# If you set this to False, Django will make some optimizations so as not
# to load the internationalization machinery.
USE_I18N = False

# If you set this to False, Django will not format dates, numbers and
# calendars according to the current locale.
USE_L10N = False # TODO: make this true and accustom date time input

DATE_INPUT_FORMATS = defaults.DATE_INPUT_FORMATS + ('%d %b %y', '%d %b, %y') # + ('25 Oct 13', '25 Oct, 13')

# If you set this to False, Django will not use timezone-aware datetimes.
USE_TZ = True

# Absolute filesystem path to the directory that will hold user-uploaded files.
# Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/media/"
MEDIA_ROOT = '/srv/www/cb/media'

# URL that handles the media served from MEDIA_ROOT. Make sure to use a
# trailing slash.
# Examples: "http://media.lawrence.com/media/", "http://example.com/media/"
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'

# Absolute path to the directory static files should be collected to.
# Don't put anything in this directory yourself; store your static files
# in apps' "static/" subdirectories and in STATICFILES_DIRS.
# Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/static/"
STATIC_ROOT = '/srv/www/cb/static'

# URL prefix for static files.
# Example: "http://media.lawrence.com/static/"
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
)

# List of finder classes that know how to find static files in
# various locations.
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
#    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.DefaultStorageFinder',
)

# Make this unique, and don't share it with anybody.
SECRET_KEY = '8lu*6g0lg)9z!ba+a$ehk)xt)x%rxgb$i1&022shmi1jcgihb*'

# List of callables that know how to import templates from various sources.
TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
#     'django.template.loaders.eggs.Loader',
)

TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS = (
    'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
    'django.core.context_processors.request',
    'django.core.context_processors.debug',
    'django.core.context_processors.i18n',
    'django.core.context_processors.media',
    'django.core.context_processors.static',
    'django.core.context_processors.tz',
    'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
    'web.context.inbox',
    'web.context.base',
    'web.context.main_search',
    'web.context.enums',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'watson.middleware.SearchContextMiddleware',
    'debug_toolbar.middleware.DebugToolbarMiddleware',
    'middleware.UserMemberMiddleware',
    'middleware.ProfilerMiddleware',
    'middleware.VaryOnAcceptMiddleware',
    # Uncomment the next line for simple clickjacking protection:
    # 'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'cb.urls'

# Python dotted path to the WSGI application used by Django's runserver.
WSGI_APPLICATION = 'cb.wsgi.application'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/django_templates" or "C:/www/django/templates".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
    '/srv/www/cb/web/templates',
    '/srv/www/cb/templates',
)

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'south',
    'grappelli', # must be before admin
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.admindocs',
    'endless_pagination',
    'debug_toolbar',
    'djangoratings',
    'watson',
    'web',
)

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'web.User'

# A sample logging configuration. The only tangible logging
# performed by this configuration is to send an email to
# the site admins on every HTTP 500 error when DEBUG=False.
# See http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/logging for
# more details on how to customize your logging configuration.
LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'filters': {
        'require_debug_false': {
            '()': 'django.utils.log.RequireDebugFalse'
        }
    },
    'formatters': {
        'standard': {
            'format' : "[%(asctime)s] %(levelname)s [%(name)s:%(lineno)s] %(message)s",
            'datefmt' : "%d/%b/%Y %H:%M:%S"
        },
    },
    'handlers': {
        'mail_admins': {
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'filters': ['require_debug_false'],
            'class': 'django.utils.log.AdminEmailHandler'
        },
        'null': {
            'level':'DEBUG',
            'class':'django.utils.log.NullHandler',
        },
        'logfile': {
            'level':'DEBUG',
            'class':'logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler',
            'filename': "/srv/www/cb/logs/application.log",
            'maxBytes': 50000,
            'backupCount': 2,
            'formatter': 'standard',
        },
        'console':{
            'level':'INFO',
            'class':'logging.StreamHandler',
            'formatter': 'standard'
        },
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django.request': {
            'handlers': ['mail_admins'],
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'propagate': True,
        },
        'django': {
            'handlers':['console'],
            'propagate': True,
            'level':'WARN',
        },
        'django.db.backends': {
            'handlers': ['console'],
            'level': 'DEBUG',
            'propagate': False,
        },
        'web': {
            'handlers': ['console', 'logfile'],
            'level': 'DEBUG',
        },
    },
}

LOGIN_URL = 'login'
LOGOUT_URL = 'logout'

#ENDLESS_PAGINATION_LOADING = """
#    <img src="/static/web/img/preloader.gif" alt="loading" style="margin:auto"/>
#"""
ENDLESS_PAGINATION_LOADING = """
    <div class="spinner small" style="margin:auto">
        <div class="block_1 spinner_block small"></div>
        <div class="block_2 spinner_block small"></div>
        <div class="block_3 spinner_block small"></div>
    </div>
"""

DEBUG_TOOLBAR_CONFIG = {
    'INTERCEPT_REDIRECTS': False,
}

import django.template.loader
django.template.loader.add_to_builtins('web.templatetags.cb_tags')
django.template.loader.add_to_builtins('web.templatetags.tag_library')

WATSON_POSTGRESQL_SEARCH_CONFIG = 'public.english_nostop'

One of the setting files:

(cb)clime@den /srv/www/cb/cb/settings $ cat development.py 
from base import *

DEBUG = True
TEMPLATE_DEBUG = True

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['127.0.0.1', '31.31.78.149']

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
        'NAME': 'cwu',
        'USER': 'clime',
        'PASSWORD': '',
        'HOST': '',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}

MEDIA_ROOT = '/srv/www/cb/media/'

STATIC_ROOT = '/srv/www/cb/static/'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    '/srv/www/cb/web/templates',
    '/srv/www/cb/templates',
)

Code in manage.py:

(cb)clime@den /srv/www/cb $ cat manage.py 
#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import sys

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

    from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line

    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)

If I add from base import * into /srv/www/cb/cb/settings/__init__.py (which is otherwise empty), it magically starts to work but I don’t understand why. Anyone could explain to me what’s going on here? It must be some python module magic.

EDIT: Everything also starts to work if I remove this line from base.py

django.template.loader.add_to_builtins('web.templatetags.cb_tags')

If I remove this line from web.templatetags.cb_tags, it also starts to work:

from endless_pagination.templatetags import endless

I guess it is because, in the end, it leads to

from django.conf import settings
PER_PAGE = getattr(settings, 'ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PER_PAGE', 10)

So it creates some weird circular stuff and game over.

I had the same error and it turned out to be a circular dependency between a module or class loaded by the settings and the settings module itself. In my case it was a middleware class which was named in the settings which itself tried to load the settings.

I ran into the same problem after restructuring the settings as per the instructions from Daniel Greenfield’s book Two scoops of Django.

I resolved the issue by setting

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "project_name.settings.local")

in manage.py and wsgi.py.

Update:

In the above solution, local is the file name (settings/local.py) inside my settings folder, which holds the settings for my local environment.

Another way to resolve this issue is to keep all your common settings inside settings/base.py and then create 3 separate settings files for your production, staging and dev environments.

Your settings folder will look like:

settings/
    __init__.py
    base.py
    local.py
    prod.py
    stage.py

and keep the following code in your settings/__init__.py

from .base import *

env_name = os.getenv('ENV_NAME', 'local')

if env_name == 'prod':
    from .prod import *
elif env_name == 'stage':
    from .stage import *
else:
    from .local import *

I had the same error with python manage.py runserver.

For me, it turned out that it was because of a stale compiled binary (.pyc) file. After deleting all such files in my project, server started running again. :)

So if you get this error, out of nowhere, i.e without making any change seemingly-related to django-settings, this could be a good first measure.

Remove .pyc files

Ubuntu terminal command for deleting .pyc : find . -name "*.pyc" -exec rm -rf {} \;

I have got same error when I did python manage.py runserver. It was because .pyc file. I deleted .pyc file from project directory then it was working.

I hadn’t specified the settings file:

python manage.py runserver --settings=my_project.settings.develop

It starts working because on the base.py you have all information needed in a basic settings file. You need the line:

SECRET_KEY = '8lu*6g0lg)9z!ba+a$ehk)xt)x%rxgb$i1&022shmi1jcgihb*'

So it works and when you do from base import *, it imports SECRET_KEY into your development.py.

You should always import basic settings before doing any custom settings.

EDIT: Also, when django imports development from your package, it initializes all variables inside base since you defined from base import * inside __init__.py

I think that it is the Environment error,you should try setting : DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE='correctly_settings'

I had the same problem with Celery. My setting.py before:

SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('DJANGO_SECRET_KEY')

after:

SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('DJANGO_SECRET_KEY', <YOUR developing key>)

If the environment variables are not defined then: SECRET_KEY = YOUR developing key

In the init.py of the settings directory write the correct import, like:

from Project.settings.base import *

No need to change wsgi.py or manage.py

I solved this problem occurring on OS X with Django both 1.5 and 1.6 by deactivating all active sessions to virtualenv and starting it again.

To throw another potential solution into the mix, I had a settings folder as well as a settings.py in my project dir. (I was switching back from environment-based settings files to one file. I have since reconsidered.)

Python was getting confused about whether I wanted to import project/settings.py or project/settings/__init__.py. I removed the settings dir and everything now works fine.

For anyone using PyCharm: the green “Run selected configuration” button would produce this error, yet running the following works:

py manage.py runserver 127.0.0.1:8000 --settings=app_name.settings.development

To fix this you need to edit the configuration’s environment variables. To do this click the “Select run/debug configuration” drop-down menu to the left of the green run button and then click on “edit configuration”. Under the “environment” tab change the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE to app_name.settings.development.

I just wanted to add that I got this error when my database name was spelled wrong in my settings.py file so the DB couldn’t be created.

I solved this problem on 1.8.4 by fixing the TEMPLATES settings which had a typo (removing TEMPLATES[‘debug’] solved it)

Go over the settings that you have changed recently, make sure all keys are by-the-book.

I solved this problem by removing the spaces around equal signs (=) in my .env file.

In my case the problem was – I had my app_folder and settings.py in it. Then I decided to make Settings folder inside app_folder – and that made a collision with settings.py. Just renamed that Settings folder – and everything worked.

My Mac OS didn’t like that it didn’t find the env variable set in the settings file:

# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('MY_SERVER_ENV_VAR_NAME')

but after adding the env var to my local Mac OS dev environment, the error disappeared:

export MY_SERVER_ENV_VAR_NAME ='fake dev security key that is longer than 50 characters.'

In my case, I also needed to add the --settings param:

python3 manage.py check --deploy --settings myappname.settings.production

where production.py is a file containing production specific settings inside a settings folder.

The issue for me was calling get_text_noop in the LANGUAGES iterable.

Changing

LANGUAGES = (
    ('en-gb', get_text_noop('British English')),
    ('fr', get_text_noop('French')),
)

to

from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _

LANGUAGES = (
    ('en-gb', _('British English')),
    ('fr', _('French')),
)

in the base settings file resolved the ImproperlyConfigured: The SECRET_KEY setting must not be empty exception.

I solved the above problem by commenting the line in my settings.py

SECRET_KEY=os.environ.get('SECRET_KEY')

SECRET_KEY declared in my ~/.bashrc file(for linux Ubuntu users)

For development purpose on my localmachine I did not use evironmnet variable

SECRET_KEY = '(i9b4aes#h1)m3h_8jh^duxrdh$4pu8-q5vkba2yf$ptd1lev_'

above line didn’t give the error

In my case, while setting up a Github action I just forgot to add the env variables to the yml file:

jobs:
  build:
    env:
     VAR1: 1
     VAR2: 5

The reason why there are so many different answers is because the exception probably doesn’t have anything to do with the SECRET_KEY. It is probably an earlier exception that is being swallowed. Turn on debugging using DEBUG=True to see the real exception.

In my case, after a long search I found that PyCharm in your Django settings (Settings > Languages & Frameworks > Django) had the configuration file field undefined. You should make this field point to your project’s settings file. Then, you must open the Run / Debug settings and remove the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE = existing path.

This happens because the Django plugin in PyCharm forces the configuration of the framework. So there is no point in configuring any os.environ.setdefault(‘DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE’, ‘myapp.settings’)

Import base.py in __init__.py alone. make sure you won’t repeat the same configuration again!.

set environment variable SET DJANGO_DEVELOPMENT =dev

settings/
  __init__.py
  base.py
  local.py
  production.py

In __init__.py

from .base import *
if os.environ.get('DJANGO_DEVELOPMENT')=='prod':
   from .production import *
else:
   from .local import *

In base.py configured the global configurations. except for Database. like

SECRET_KEY, ALLOWED_HOSTS,INSTALLED_APPS,MIDDLEWARE .. etc....

In local.py

DATABASES = {
'default': {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
    'NAME': 'database',
    'USER': 'postgres',
    'PASSWORD': 'password',
    'HOST': 'localhost',
    'PORT': '5432',
}
}

I came here looking for answer as I was facing the same issues, none of the answers here worked for me. Then after searching in other websites i stumbled upon this simple fix. It worked for me

wsgi.py

os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'yourProject.settings')

to

os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'yourProject.settings.dev')