django 1.8 fails to django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: relation "auth_user" does not exist

Question

I had a working project with django 1.7, and now I moved it to django 1.8. I can do syncdb and run the app with sqlite, but when I switch to postgres, it fails to do syncdb:

  Creating tables...
    Creating table x
    Creating table y
    Running deferred SQL...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 338, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 330, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 390, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 441, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/syncdb.py", line 25, in handle
    call_command("migrate", **options)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 120, in call_command
    return command.execute(*args, **defaults)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 441, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/migrate.py", line 179, in handle
    created_models = self.sync_apps(connection, executor.loader.unmigrated_apps)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/migrate.py", line 317, in sync_apps
    cursor.execute(statement)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 79, in execute
    return super(CursorDebugWrapper, self).execute(sql, params)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 64, in execute
    return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 97, in __exit__
    six.reraise(dj_exc_type, dj_exc_value, traceback)
  File "~/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 62, in execute
    return self.cursor.execute(sql)
django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: relation "auth_user" does not exist

I tried deleting the database and recreating it. Also, I tried:

python manage.py migrate auth

which also fails:

django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: relation "django_site" does not exist

LINE 1: SELECT (1) AS "a" FROM "django_site" LIMIT 1

Please help get this fixed.

And then if you switch back to sqlite for your database backend and start from an empty database, it works again? — Louis, Jun 17 '15 at 16:51
This may have something to do with changes in Django 1.8: try using the '--fake-initial' option when you migrate if the tables already exist; it used to be implicit, but has now been made explicit: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/ref/django-admin/#django-admin-option---fake-initial Did you try deleting the SQLite DB or the PostgreSQL DB? — FlipperPA, Jun 17 '15 at 17:02
Yes. I've tried deleting the database. When I run `python manage.py migrate --fake-initial myapp` it gives me the error: the app does not have migrations (you cannot selectively sync unmigrated apps) — max, Jun 17 '15 at 20:42
I had a similar problem recently though it was when running tests to this solution didn't work. In the end I discovered that I was missing the 'allauth.socialaccount' app from my installed apps. I don't know why it suddenly started happening though. — Simon, May 06 '21 at 06:20

FSp · Answer 1 · 2015-10-10T15:20:07.617

I didn't like the idea of commenting/uncommenting code, so I tried a different approach: I migrated "manually" some apps, and then run django-admin.py migrate for the remaining ones. After deleting all the *.pyc files, my sequence of commands was:

$ django-admin.py migrate auth
$ django-admin.py migrate contentypes
$ django-admin.py migrate sites
$ django-admin.py migrate MY_CUSTOM_USER_APP
$ django-admin.py migrate

where MY_CUSTOM_USER_APP is the name of the application containing the model I set AUTH_USER_MODEL to in my settings file.

Hope it can help. Btw, it seems strange that the best way to synchronize your db in Django 1.8 is so complicated. I wonder if I'm missing something (I'm not very familiar with Django 1.8, I used to work with older versions)

Switching off apps one by one helped me to find what was the problem — Denis, Mar 05 '21 at 01:56

score 11 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 03 '16 at 18:35

Working on Django 1.10 I found out another solution: My application is named "web", and first I call:

python manage.py makemigrations web

then I call:

python manage.py makemigrations auth

then I call:

python manage.py migrate

Amazed: IT'S WORKING! :) It seems auth was searching for the AUTH_USER_MODEL "web.UserProfile" and a relation named web_user_profile, and it didn't find it, hence the error. On the other hand, calling makemigrations web first creates the required relation first, before auth is able to check and alert it's not there.

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 23 '16 at 10:53

8

Always migrate db with python manage.py makemigrations and then python manage.py migrate in newer versions. For the error above if first time your are migrating your database then use python manage.py migrate --fake-initial. See docs https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/django-admin/#django-admin-migrate

edited Jun 23 '16 at 10:53

vabada

1,738
4
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answered Jan 28 '16 at 20:07

Mudassar Hashmi

2,639
1
17
25

score 6 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

I had the same problem, and I spent hours banging my head trying to find a solution, which was hidden in the comments. My problem was that CircleCI couldn't run tests because of this error. And I thought I would need to start fresh with a new and empty DB. But I got the same errors. Everything was seemingly related to 'auth', 'contenttypes' and 'sites'.

I read this, and this, as well as this and also this. None were solutions for me.

So after having destroyed my DB and created a new one, the only solution I found to entirely avoid these django.db.utils.ProgrammingError was to:

Comment out all code related to the User model.
Delete all .pyc files in my project! find . -name "*.pyc" -exec rm -- {} + Thanks @max!
run ./manage.py migrate (no fake, no fake-initial, no migration of 'auth' or 'contenttypes' before, juste plain migrate.
Uncomment the above code, and run migrate again!

My INSTALLED_APP is the following:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'rest_framework',
    'mptt',
    'djangobower',
    'honeypot',
    'django_hosts',
    'leaflet',
    'multiselectfield',
    'corsheaders',
    'rest_framework_swagger',
    'allauth',
    'allauth.account',
    # 'allauth.socialaccount',
    # 'allauth.socialaccount.providers.twitter',
    # 'allauth.socialaccount.providers.facebook',
    'project.<app_name>',
)

The second time you run migrate, the code you commented out will not run, sure, but what happens when you want to deploy your application elsewhere, where the migrations will have to run from scratch? If the user-related code is not necessary, you should just get rid of it. — borfast, Feb 05 '16 at 23:22
Worked for me too. I didn't have to delete and .pyc files, though. I had to comment out forms.py, urls.py, and views.py. — Malachi Bazar, Apr 27 '20 at 18:13

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 20 '18 at 21:42

Deleting migration files, associated .pyc files, and just to be safe all .pyc files with the following commands did not solve my issue.

$ find . -path "*/migrations/*.py" -not -name "__init__.py" -delete
$ find . -path "*/migrations/*.pyc"  -delete
$ find . -name "*.pyc" -exec rm -- {} +

What ended up solving my issue wasn't clearing caches, it was because I had a function that performed a query as a default function parameter. On init, which is what commands like makemigrations and migrate do before executing it seems like django (perhaps a python attribute?) initializes all default parameters.

As my database was completely empty (I needed to perform migrate --run-syncdb to recreate the tables) when the below default parameter was initialized, it ran a query against the empty database that subsequently failed.

change this:

def generate_new_addresses(number=1, index=None, wallet=get_active_wallet()):
   ...
   ...
   return

to:

def generate_new_addresses(number=1, index=None, wallet=None):
   if not wallet:
      wallet = get_active_wallet()
   ...
   ...
   return

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 05 '19 at 17:08

I had the same issue, but my underlying cause was the __init__.py file in one of the migrations folders had been deleted from source code but not locally (causing 'Not on my machine' errors).

Migrations folders still need __init__.py files, even with Python 3.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 20 '18 at 11:56

In my case, this error was appearing when the postgresql driver was able to connect to the database, but the provided user does not have access to the schema or the tables, etc. Instead of saying permission denied, the error being shown is saying that the database table being queried is not being found. Typically in such a situation, the migrate command will also fail with a similar error when it tries to create the django_migrations table.

Check for access being granted on the user you're using in database connection in Django.

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 22 '20 at 10:13

0

I had this issues with a forms.ChoiceForm queryset. I was able to switch to using forms.ModelChoiceForm which are lazily evaluated and this fixed the problem for me.

answered Apr 22 '20 at 10:13

adam b

346
1
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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 25 '22 at 05:35

In My Case I made migrations using some other similar looking migration file(1). Then I deleted it, and made 2 new migration files for replacement(2&3). And then I was getting this error.

In my case the table was renamed using migration file 1 But django was searching for old table name in migration file 3

So I renamed table manually to old name, and applied migration and It was successful

score -1 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 31 '18 at 06:22

-1

Error is basically because db (postgres or sqlite) have not found the relation, for which you are inserting or else performing CRUD. The solution is to make migrations

python manage.py makemigrations <app_name> python manage.py migrate

answered Aug 31 '18 at 06:22

Shishir

327
3
6

django 1.8 fails to django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: relation "auth_user" does not exist

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