Django: how to install mysql/connector python with pip3

Question

I am working on projects based on Django 1.7 and Python 3.4. However, I had problems installing MySQL/Connector Python with pip3.

According to this document, MySQL/Connector Python supports Python 3. I used to install MySQL-python in Python with command pip install MySQL-python.

This download page only provides .deb files for installation on Ubuntu (btw, the installation also has conflict problems)

I tried to install with:

pip3 install mysql-connector-python --allow-external mysql-connector-python

No error messages. But when I run the Django app, I got the following error message:

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading MySQLdb module: No module named 'MySQLdb'

Question: So, how do I install MySQL/Connector Python into a virtual environment with pip3? Or is it supposed to be installed into the system, instead of a virtual environment?

Please post the content of the *DATABASES* section of your `settings.py` file — Lucio, Oct 26 '14 at 14:47
DATABASES = { 'default': { 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', 'NAME': '', 'USER': '', 'PASSWORD': '', 'HOST': '127.0.0.1', 'PORT': '3306', } } — Randy Tang, Oct 26 '14 at 14:48
BTW, I tried to change 'ENGING' to 'django.connector.mysql', but Django complaints "No module named 'django.connector' ". — Randy Tang, Oct 26 '14 at 14:50
Sorry, my bad. The 'Engine' should be 'mysql.connector.django'. It works. Sorry about it. — Randy Tang, Oct 26 '14 at 14:55

Lucio · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-26T15:09:29.377

23

If you read the documentation, you will see that the native MySQLdb driver doesn't support Python 3. You have two options:

A mysqldb fork

There is a fork that supports Python 3. Read its Github repo to know how to install with your system. For Ubuntu do apt-get install python-mysqldb

MySQL connector

Install from venv as you did with pip install mysql-connector-python --allow-external mysql-connector-python. Then read their documentation for Django and modify your settings.py file to have it like:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'NAME': 'user_data',
        'ENGINE': 'mysql.connector.django',
        'USER': 'mysql_user',
        'PASSWORD': 'priv4te',
        'OPTIONS': {
          'autocommit': True,
        },
    }
}

Pay attention to the connector value mysql.connector.django :-)

edited Oct 26 '14 at 15:09

answered Oct 26 '14 at 14:41

Lucio

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Python-mysqldb installed, but no luck. – Randy Tang Oct 26 '14 at 14:47
This stopped working. Now I'm using mysqlclient. [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22419210/django-and-mysql-problems-on-mavericks](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22419210/django-and-mysql-problems-on-mavericks) – None May 18 '15 at 23:54
@Lucio please, update your answer: `mysql-connector-python` >= 8.0.13 has a bug, making it impossible to work with Django: https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/30469 As a workaround, add `'use_pure': True` to the `'OPTIONS'`. – Dmytro Gierman Oct 31 '19 at 07:58

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered May 31 '15 at 17:29

The version of mysql-connector that pip installs doesn't work with Django 1.8. There is a fixed version on github. The command to install from there is

pip install --allow-all-external git+git://github.com/multiplay/mysql-connector-python

That one works with Django 1.8.

Django: how to install mysql/connector python with pip3

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