I’m using Django Rest Framework. and I keep getting an error

Exception Type: TemplateDoesNotExist
Exception Value: rest_framework/api.html

I dont know how I’m going wrong. This is the first time I’m trying out hands on REST Framework. This is code.

views.py

import socket, json
from modules.data.models import *
from modules.utils import *
from rest_framework import status
from rest_framework.decorators import api_view
from rest_framework.response import Response
from modules.actions.serializers import ActionSerializer


@api_view(['POST'])
@check_field_exists_wrapper("installation")
def api_actions(request, format = None):

    action_type = request.POST['action_type']
    if action_type == "Shutdown" : 
        send_message = '1'
        print "Shutting Down the system..."
    elif action_type == "Enable" : 
        send_message = '1'
        print "Enabling the system..."
    elif action_type == "Disable" : 
        send_message = '1'
        print "Disabling the system..."
    elif action_type == "Restart" : 
        send_message = '1'
        print "Restarting the system..."

    if action_type in ["Shutdown", "Enable", "Disable"] : PORT = 6000
    else : PORT = 6100

    controllers_list = Controller.objects.filter(installation_id = kwargs['installation_id'])

    for controller_obj in controllers_list:
        ip = controller_obj.ip
        try:
            s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
            s.connect((ip, PORT))
            s.send(send_message)
            s.close()
        except Exception as e:
            print("Exception when sending " + action_type +" command: "+str(e))

    return Response(status = status.HTTP_200_OK)

models.py

class Controller(models.Model):
    id = models.IntegerField(primary_key = True)
    name = models.CharField(max_length = 255, unique = True)
    ip = models.CharField(max_length = 255, unique = True)
    installation_id = models.ForeignKey('Installation')

serializers.py

from django.forms import widgets from rest_framework import serializers from modules.data.models import *

class ActionSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Controller
        fields = ('id', 'name', 'ip', 'installation_id')

urls.py

from django.conf.urls import patterns, url
from rest_framework.urlpatterns import format_suffix_patterns

urlpatterns = patterns('modules.actions.views',
    url(r'^$','api_actions',name='api_actions'),
)

Make sure you have rest_framework listed in your settings.py INSTALLED_APPS.

For me, rest_framework/api.html was actually missing on the filesystem due to a corrupt installation or some other unknown reason. Reinstalling djangorestframework fixed the problem:

$ pip install --upgrade djangorestframework

Please note that the DRF attempts to return data in the same format that was requested. From your browser, this is most likely HTML. To specify an alternative response, use the ?format= parameter. For example: ?format=json.

The TemplateDoesNotExist error occurs most commonly when you are visiting an API endpoint in your browser and you do not have the rest_framework included in your list of installed apps, as described by other respondents.

If you do not have DRF included in your list of apps, but don’t want to use the HTML Admin DRF page, try using an alternative format to ‘side-step’ this error message.

More info from the docs here: http://www.django-rest-framework.org/topics/browsable-api/#formats

Not your case, but also possible reason is customized loaders for Django. For example, if you have in settings (since Django 1.8):

TEMPLATES = [
{
    ...
    'OPTIONS': {
        'context_processors': [
            'django.template.context_processors.debug',
            'django.template.context_processors.request',
            'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
            'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages'
        ],
        'loaders': [
            'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
        ],
        ...
    }
}]

Django will not try to look at applications folders with templates, because you should explicitly add django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader into loaders for that.

Notice, that by default django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader included into loaders.

I ran into the same error message. In my case, it was due to setting the backend to Jinja2. In my settings file:

TEMPLATES = [
{
    'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.jinja2.Jinja2',
...

Changing this back to the default fixed the problem:

TEMPLATES = [
{
    'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
...

Still not sure if there is a way to use the Jinja2 backend with rest_framework.

I’m developing an API using Django Rest Framework. I’m trying to list or create an “Order” object, but when i’m trying to access the console gives me this error:

{"detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."}

Views:

from django.shortcuts import render
from rest_framework import viewsets
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from rest_framework.renderers import JSONRenderer, YAMLRenderer
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework.views import APIView
from order.models import *
from API.serializers import *
from rest_framework.permissions import IsAuthenticated

class OrderViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    model = Order
    serializer_class = OrderSerializer
    permission_classes = (IsAuthenticated,)

Serializer:

class OrderSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = Order
        fields = ('field1', 'field2')

And my URLs:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from django.conf.urls import patterns, include, url
from django.conf import settings
from django.contrib import admin
from django.utils.functional import curry
from django.views.defaults import *
from rest_framework import routers
from API.views import *

admin.autodiscover()

handler500 = "web.views.server_error"
handler404 = "web.views.page_not_found_error"

router = routers.DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'orders', OrdersViewSet)

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^api-auth/', include('rest_framework.urls', namespace='rest_framework')),
    url(r'^api-token-auth/', 'rest_framework.authtoken.views.obtain_auth_token'),
    url(r'^api/', include(router.urls)),
)

And then I’m using this command in the console:

curl -X GET http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/orders/ -H 'Authorization: Token 12383dcb52d627eabd39e7e88501e96a2sadc55'

And the error say:

{"detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."}

If you are runnig Django on Apache using mod_wsgi you have to add

WSGIPassAuthorization On

in your httpd.conf. Otherwise authorization header will be stripped out by mod_wsgi.

Solved by adding “DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES” to my settings.py

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
   'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
       'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
   ),
   'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework.permissions.IsAdminUser'
   ),
}

This help me out without “DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES” in my settings.py

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
        'rest_framework.authentication.SessionAuthentication',
    ),
    'PAGE_SIZE': 10
}

Just for other people landing up here with same error, this issue can arise if your request.user is AnonymousUser and not the right user who is actually authorized to access the URL. You can see that by printing value of request.user . If it is indeed an anonymous user, these steps might help:

1. Make sure you have 'rest_framework.authtoken' in INSTALLED_APPS in your settings.py.

2. Make sure you have this somewhere in settings.py:

   REST_FRAMEWORK = {
   
       'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
           'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
           # ...
       ),
   
       # ...
   }
   

3. Make sure you have the correct token for the user who is logged in. If you do not have the token, learn how to get it here. Basically, you need to do a POST request to a view which gives you the token if you provide the correct username and password. Example:

   curl -X POST -d "user=Pepe&password=aaaa"  http://localhost:8000/
   

4. Make sure the view which you are trying to access, has these:

   class some_fancy_example_view(ModelViewSet): 
   """
   not compulsary it has to be 'ModelViewSet' this can be anything like APIview etc, depending on your requirements.
   """
       permission_classes = (IsAuthenticated,) 
       authentication_classes = (TokenAuthentication,) 
       # ...
   

5. Use curl now this way:

   curl -X (your_request_method) -H  "Authorization: Token <your_token>" <your_url>
   

Example:

    curl -X GET http://127.0.0.1:8001/expenses/  -H "Authorization: Token 9463b437afdd3f34b8ec66acda4b192a815a15a8"

If you are playing around in the command line (using curl, or HTTPie etc) you can use BasicAuthentication to test/user your API

    REST_FRAMEWORK = {
        'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': [
            'rest_framework.permissions.IsAuthenticated',
        ],
        'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
            'rest_framework.authentication.BasicAuthentication',  # enables simple command line authentication
            'rest_framework.authentication.SessionAuthentication',
            'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
        )
    }

You can then use curl

curl --user user:password -X POST http://example.com/path/ --data "some_field=some data"

or httpie (its easier on the eyes):

http -a user:password POST http://example.com/path/ some_field="some data"

or something else like Advanced Rest Client (ARC)

I too faced the same since I missed adding

authentication_classes = (TokenAuthentication)

in my API view class.

class ServiceList(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
    authentication_classes = (SessionAuthentication, BasicAuthentication, TokenAuthentication)
    queryset = Service.objects.all()
    serializer_class = ServiceSerializer
    permission_classes = (IsAdminOrReadOnly,)

In addition to the above, we need to explicitly tell Django about the Authentication in settings.py file.

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
   'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
   'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
   )
}

Adding SessionAuthentication in settings.py will do the job

REST_FRAMEWORK = { 'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': ( 'rest_framework.authentication.SessionAuthentication', ), }

Since it is session Login so you need to provide you credentials so do 127.0.0:8000/admin admin and login later it will work fine

For me, I had to prepend my Authorization header with “JWT” instead of “Bearer” or “Token” on Django DRF. Then it started working. eg –

Authorization: JWT asdflkj2ewmnsasdfmnwelfkjsdfghdfghdv.wlsfdkwefojdfgh

If you are using authentication_classes then you should have is_active as True in User model, which might be False by default.

I have a question about dealing with m2m / through models and their presentation in django rest framework. Let’s take a classic example:

models.py:

from django.db import models

class Member(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length = 20)
    groups = models.ManyToManyField('Group', through = 'Membership')

class Group(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length = 20)

class Membership(models.Model):
    member = models.ForeignKey('Member')
    group = models.ForeignKey('Group')
    join_date = models.DateTimeField()

serializers.py:

imports...

class MemberSerializer(ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Member

class GroupSerializer(ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = Group

views.py:

imports...

class MemberViewSet(ModelViewSet):
    queryset = Member.objects.all()
    serializer_class = MemberSerializer

class GroupViewSet(ModelViewSet):
    queryset = Group.objects.all()
    serializer_class = GroupSerializer

When GETing an instance of Member, I successfully receive all of the member’s fields and also its groups – however I only get the groups’ details, without extra details that comes from the Membership model.

In other words I expect to receive:

{
   'id' : 2,
   'name' : 'some member',
   'groups' : [
      {
         'id' : 55,
         'name' : 'group 1'
         'join_date' : 34151564
      },
      {
         'id' : 56,
         'name' : 'group 2'
         'join_date' : 11200299
      }
   ]
}

Note the join_date.

I have tried oh so many solutions, including of course Django Rest-Framework official page about it and no one seems to give a proper plain answer about it – what do I need to do to include these extra fields? I found it more straight-forward with django-tastypie but had some other problems and prefer rest-framework.

How about…..

On your MemberSerializer, define a field on it like:

groups = MembershipSerializer(source='membership_set', many=True)

and then on your membership serializer you can create this:

class MembershipSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

    id = serializers.Field(source='group.id')
    name = serializers.Field(source='group.name')

    class Meta:
        model = Membership

        fields = ('id', 'name', 'join_date', )

That has the overall effect of creating a serialized value, groups, that has as its source the membership you want, and then it uses a custom serializer to pull out the bits you want to display.

EDIT: as commented by @bryanph, serializers.field was renamed to serializers.ReadOnlyField in DRF 3.0, so this should read:

class MembershipSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

    id = serializers.ReadOnlyField(source='group.id')
    name = serializers.ReadOnlyField(source='group.name')

    class Meta:
        model = Membership

        fields = ('id', 'name', 'join_date', )

for any modern implementations

I was facing this problem and my solution (using DRF 3.6) was to use SerializerMethodField on the object and explicitly query the Membership table like so:

class MembershipSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    """Used as a nested serializer by MemberSerializer"""
    class Meta:
        model = Membership
        fields = ('id','group','join_date')

class MemberSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    groups = serializers.SerializerMethodField()

    class Meta:
        model = Member
        fields = ('id','name','groups')

    def get_groups(self, obj):
        "obj is a Member instance. Returns list of dicts"""
        qset = Membership.objects.filter(member=obj)
        return [MembershipSerializer(m).data for m in qset]

This will return a list of dicts for the groups key where each dict is serialized from the MembershipSerializer. To make it writable, you can define your own create/update method inside the MemberSerializer where you iterate over the input data and explicitly create or update Membership model instances.

NOTE: As a Software Engineer, I love to use Architectures and I have deeply worked on Layered Approach for Development so I am gonna be Answering it with Respect to Tiers.

As i understood the Issue, Here’s the Solution models.py

class Member(models.Model):
    member_id = models.AutoField(primary_key=True)
    member_name = models.CharField(max_length = 

class Group(models.Model):
    group_id = models.AutoField(primary_key=True)
    group_name = models.CharField(max_length = 20)
    fk_member_id = models.ForeignKey('Member', models.DO_NOTHING, 
                             db_column='fk_member_id', blank=True, null=True)

class Membership(models.Model):
    membershipid = models.AutoField(primary_key=True)
    fk_group_id = models.ForeignKey('Group', models.DO_NOTHING, 
                             db_column='fk_member_id', blank=True, null=True)
    join_date = models.DateTimeField()

serializers.py

import serializer

class AllSerializer(serializer.Serializer):
    group_id = serializer.IntegerField()
    group_name = serializer.CharField(max_length = 20)
    join_date = serializer.DateTimeField()

CustomModels.py

imports...

    class AllDataModel():
        group_id = ""
        group_name = ""
        join_date = ""

BusinessLogic.py

imports ....
class getdata(memberid):
    alldataDict = {}
    dto = []
    Member = models.Members.objects.get(member_id=memberid) #or use filter for Name
    alldataDict["MemberId"] = Member.member_id
    alldataDict["MemberName"] = Member.member_name
    Groups = models.Group.objects.filter(fk_member_id=Member)
    for item in Groups:
        Custommodel = CustomModels.AllDataModel()
        Custommodel.group_id = item.group_id
        Custommodel.group_name = item.group_name
        Membership = models.Membership.objects.get(fk_group_id=item.group_id)
        Custommodel.join_date = Membership.join_date
        dto.append(Custommodel)
    serializer = AllSerializer(dto,many=True)
    alldataDict.update(serializer.data)
    return alldataDict

You would technically, have to pass the Request to DataAccessLayer which would return the Filtered Objects from Data Access Layer but as I have to Answer the Question in a Fast Manner so i adjusted the Code in Business Logic Layer!

I am building a project in Django Rest Framework where users can login to view their wine cellar. My ModelViewSets were working just fine and all of a sudden I get this frustrating error:

Could not resolve URL for hyperlinked relationship using view name “user-detail”. You may have failed to include the related model in your API, or incorrectly configured the lookup_field attribute on this field.

The traceback shows:

    [12/Dec/2013 18:35:29] "GET /bottles/ HTTP/1.1" 500 76677
Internal Server Error: /bottles/
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 114, in get_response
    response = wrapped_callback(request, *callback_args, **callback_kwargs)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/viewsets.py", line 78, in view
    return self.dispatch(request, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/views/decorators/csrf.py", line 57, in wrapped_view
    return view_func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/views.py", line 399, in dispatch
    response = self.handle_exception(exc)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/views.py", line 396, in dispatch
    response = handler(request, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/mixins.py", line 96, in list
    return Response(serializer.data)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/serializers.py", line 535, in data
    self._data = [self.to_native(item) for item in obj]
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/serializers.py", line 325, in to_native
    value = field.field_to_native(obj, field_name)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/relations.py", line 153, in field_to_native
    return self.to_native(value)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/relations.py", line 452, in to_native
    raise Exception(msg % view_name)
Exception: Could not resolve URL for hyperlinked relationship using view 
name "user-detail". You may have failed to include the related model in 
your API, or incorrectly configured the `lookup_field` attribute on this 
field.

I have a custom email user model and the bottle model in models.py is:

class Bottle(models.Model):    
      wine = models.ForeignKey(Wine, null=False)
      user = models.ForeignKey(User, null=False, related_name='bottles')

My serializers:

class BottleSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = Bottle
        fields = ('url', 'wine', 'user')

class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('email', 'first_name', 'last_name', 'password', 'is_superuser')

My views:

class BottleViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    """
    API endpoint that allows bottles to be viewed or edited.
    """
    queryset = Bottle.objects.all()
    serializer_class = BottleSerializer

class UserViewSet(ListCreateAPIView):
    """
    API endpoint that allows users to be viewed or edited.
    """
    queryset = User.objects.all()
    serializer_class = UserSerializer

and finally the url:

router = routers.DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'bottles', views.BottleViewSet, base_name='bottles')

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^', include(router.urls)),
    # ...

I don’t have a user detail view and I don’t see where this issue could come from. Any ideas?

Thanks

Because it’s a HyperlinkedModelSerializer your serializer is trying to resolve the URL for the related User on your Bottle.
As you don’t have the user detail view it can’t do this. Hence the exception.

1. Would not just registering the UserViewSet with the router solve your issue?
2. You could define the user field on your BottleSerializer to explicitly use the UserSerializer rather than trying to resolve the URL. See the serializer docs on dealing with nested objects for that.

I came across this error too and solved it as follows:

The reason is I forgot giving “**-detail” (view_name, e.g.: user-detail) a namespace. So, Django Rest Framework could not find that view.

There is one app in my project, suppose that my project name is myproject, and the app name is myapp.

There is two urls.py file, one is myproject/urls.py and the other is myapp/urls.py. I give the app a namespace in myproject/urls.py, just like:

url(r'', include(myapp.urls, namespace="myapp")),

I registered the rest framework routers in myapp/urls.py, and then got this error.

My solution was to provide url with namespace explicitly:

class UserSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    url = serializers.HyperlinkedIdentityField(view_name="myapp:user-detail")

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('url', 'username')

And it solved my problem.

Maybe someone can have a look at this : http://www.django-rest-framework.org/api-guide/routers/

If using namespacing with hyperlinked serializers you’ll also need to ensure that any view_name parameters on the serializers correctly reflect the namespace. For example:

urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^forgot-password/$', ForgotPasswordFormView.as_view()),
    url(r'^api/', include(router.urls, namespace='api')),
]

you’d need to include a parameter such as view_name='api:user-detail' for serializer fields hyperlinked to the user detail view.

class UserSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    url = serializers.HyperlinkedIdentityField(view_name="api:user-detail")

class Meta:
    model = User
    fields = ('url', 'username')

Another nasty mistake that causes this error is having the base_name unnecessarily defined in your urls.py. For example:

router.register(r'{pathname}', views.{ViewName}ViewSet, base_name='pathname')

This will cause the error noted above. Get that base_name outta there and get back to a working API. The code below would fix the error. Hooray!

router.register(r'{pathname}', views.{ViewName}ViewSet)

However, you probably didn’t just arbitrarily add the base_name, you might have done it because you defined a custom def get_queryset() for the View and so Django mandates that you add the base_name. In this case you’ll need to explicitly define the ‘url’ as a HyperlinkedIdentityField for the serializer in question. Notice we are defining this HyperlinkedIdentityField ON THE SERIALIZER of the view that is throwing the error. If my error were “Could not resolve URL for hyperlinked relationship using view name “study-detail”. You may have failed to include the related model in your API, or incorrectly configured the lookup_field attribute on this field.” I could fix this with the following code.

My ModelViewSet (the custom get_queryset is why I had to add the base_name to the router.register() in the first place):

class StudyViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    serializer_class = StudySerializer

    '''custom get_queryset'''
    def get_queryset(self):
        queryset = Study.objects.all()
        return queryset

My router registration for this ModelViewSet in urls.py:

router.register(r'studies', views.StudyViewSet, base_name='studies')

AND HERE’S WHERE THE MONEY IS! Then I could solve it like so:

class StudySerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    url = serializers.HyperlinkedIdentityField(view_name="studies-detail")
    class Meta:
        model = Study
        fields = ('url', 'name', 'active', 'created',
              'time_zone', 'user', 'surveys')

Yep. You have to explicitly define this HyperlinkedIdentityField on itself for it to work. And you need to make sure that the view_name defined on the HyperlinkedIdentityField is the same as you defined on the base_name in urls.py with a ‘-detail’ added after it.

This code should work, too.

class BottleSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

  user = UserSerializer()

  class Meta:
    model = Bottle
    fields = ('url', 'wine', 'user')

I ran into this error after adding namespace to my url

 url('api/v2/', include('api.urls', namespace='v2')),

and adding app_name to my urls.py

I resolved this by specifying NamespaceVersioning for my rest framework api in settings.py of my project

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_VERSIONING_CLASS':'rest_framework.versioning.NamespaceVersioning'}

Today, I got the same error and below changes rescue me.

Change

class BottleSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

to:

 class BottleSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

Same Error, but different reason:

I define a custom user model, nothing new field:

from django.contrib.auth.models import (AbstractUser)
class CustomUser(AbstractUser):
    """
    custom user, reference below example
    https://github.com/jonathanchu/django-custom-user-example/blob/master/customuser/accounts/models.py

    # original User class has all I need
    # Just add __str__, not rewrite other field
    - id
    - username
    - password
    - email
    - is_active
    - date_joined
    - method, email_user
    """

    def __str__(self):
        return self.username

This is my view function:

from rest_framework import permissions
from rest_framework import viewsets
from .models import (CustomUser)
class UserViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    permission_classes = (permissions.AllowAny,)
    serializer_class = UserSerializer

    def get_queryset(self):
        queryset = CustomUser.objects.filter(id=self.request.user.id)
        if self.request.user.is_superuser:
            queryset = CustomUser.objects.all()
        return queryset

Since I didn’t give queryset directly in UserViewSet, I have to set base_name when I register this viewset. This is where my error message caused by urls.py file:

from myapp.views import (UserViewSet)
from rest_framework.routers import DefaultRouter
router = DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'users', UserViewSet, base_name='customuser')  # <--base_name needs to be 'customuser' instead of 'user'

You need a base_name same as your model name – customuser.

If you’re extending the GenericViewSet and ListModelMixin classes, and have the same error when adding the url field in the list view, it’s because you’re not defining the detail view. Be sure you’re extending the RetrieveModelMixin mixin:

class UserViewSet (mixins.ListModelMixin,
                   mixins.RetrieveModelMixin,
                   viewsets.GenericViewSet):

It appears that HyperlinkedModelSerializer do not agree with having a path namespace. In my application I made two changes.

# rootapp/urls.py
urlpatterns = [
    # path('api/', include('izzi.api.urls', namespace='api'))
    path('api/', include('izzi.api.urls')) # removed namespace
]

In the imported urls file

# app/urls.py
app_name = 'api' // removed the app_name

Hope this helps.

I ran into the same error while I was following the DRF quickstart guide http://www.django-rest-framework.org/tutorial/quickstart/ and then attempting to browse to /users. I’ve done this setup many times before without problems.

My solution was not in the code but in replacing the database.

The difference between this install and the others before was when I created the local database.

This time I ran my

./manage.py migrate
./manage.py createsuperuser

immediately after running

virtualenv venv
. venv/bin/activate
pip install django
pip install djangorestframework

Instead of the exact order listed in the guide.

I suspected something wasn’t properly created in the DB. I didn’t care about my dev db so I deleted it and ran the ./manage.py migrate command once more, created a super user, browsed to /users and the error was gone.

Something was problematic with the order of operations in which I configured DRF and the db.

If you are using sqlite and are able to test changing to a fresh DB then it’s worth an attempt before you go dissecting all of your code.

Bottle = serializers.PrimaryKeyRelatedField(read_only=True)

read_only allows you to represent the field without having to link it to another view of the model.

I got that error on DRF 3.7.7 when a slug value was empty (equals to ”) in the database.

I ran into this same issue and resolved it by adding generics.RetrieveAPIView as a base class to my viewset.