South migration error: NoMigrations exception for django.contrib.auth

Question

I have been using South on my project for a while, but I recently did a huge amount of development and changed development machine and I think something messed up in the process. The project works fine, but I can't apply migrations. Whenever I try to apply a migration I get the following traceback:

danpalmer:pest Dan$ python manage.py migrate frontend
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 11, in <module>
    execute_manager(settings)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 362, in execute_manager
    utility.execute()
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 303, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 195, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 222, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/South-0.7-py2.6.egg/south/management/commands/migrate.py", line 102, in handle
    delete_ghosts = delete_ghosts,
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/South-0.7-py2.6.egg/south/migration/__init__.py", line 182, in migrate_app
    applied = check_migration_histories(applied, delete_ghosts)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/South-0.7-py2.6.egg/south/migration/__init__.py", line 85, in check_migration_histories
    m = h.get_migration()
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/South-0.7-py2.6.egg/south/models.py", line 34, in get_migration
    return self.get_migrations().migration(self.migration)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/South-0.7-py2.6.egg/south/models.py", line 31, in get_migrations
    return Migrations(self.app_name)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/South-0.7-py2.6.egg/south/migration/base.py", line 60, in __call__
    self.instances[app_label] = super(MigrationsMetaclass, self).__call__(app_label_to_app_module(app_label), **kwds)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/South-0.7-py2.6.egg/south/migration/base.py", line 88, in __init__
    self.set_application(application, force_creation, verbose_creation)
  File "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/South-0.7-py2.6.egg/south/migration/base.py", line 159, in set_application
    raise exceptions.NoMigrations(application)
south.exceptions.NoMigrations: Application '<module 'django.contrib.auth' from '/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/__init__.pyc'>' has no migrations.

I am not that experienced with South and I haven't met this error before. The only helpful mention I can find online about this error is for pre-0.7 I think and I am on South 0.7. I ran 'easy_install -U South' just to make sure.

Did you syncdb first to ensure the southmigrationhistory tables are there? Or did you import a db dump when you moved machine? — Steve Jalim, May 16 '10 at 22:40
Also, django.contrib.auth shouldn't use migrations (unless you're doing something to hack it yourself). Did you manually create a migrations directory for contrib.auth? — Steve Jalim, May 16 '10 at 23:04
I did a syncdb to begin with. The database is the same database as I just use an SQLite database for development. For the second point, see my solution below. — danpalmer, May 19 '10 at 07:50
I had the same exception with the `taggit` application. But it happened when I was using database dumps from another server: the server had version 0.11.2, and I had an older 0.9.3. After `pip install -U django-taggit` the problems went away. — Tomasz Gandor, Apr 15 '14 at 14:35

score 43 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 07 '10 at 09:43

43

Leaving this here for future googlers

I recently ran into this exceptions with one of my own apps today, not a contrib one.

After a bit of head-scratching I noticed that somehow the file ...

 app/migrations/__init__.py

... had been deleted, which means python cant import the dir as a module etc etc.

answered Jul 07 '10 at 09:43

sjh

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For me was an incoherent state between registered migrations into the database and the removal of the `migrations` directory. Adding a `migrations` and its `__init__.py` solved the problem. – gipi Oct 16 '14 at 10:22
I was in an opposite situation. I deleted the `*.py` migration files, leaving the `*.pyc` versions alone. The South or Django 1.7+ migration framework doesn't recognize `*.pyc` migration files. Also, check `MIGRATION_MODULES` setting in Django settings module. – Rockallite Aug 26 '15 at 10:01

score 26 · Accepted Answer · answered May 19 '10 at 07:54

26

I solved the problem.

Obviously, you can't use South to do the migrations for the apps that are part of Django, like 'auth' so I didn't know why it was trying to.

I realised that for a while I had another app within my project called auth. I must have tried to migrate this at some point before renaming it and therefore messed it all up.

I removed the migration history entries from the database for that app and everything was fine.

answered May 19 '10 at 07:54

danpalmer

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Ran into same with messages app just today. – Jyrsa Oct 30 '12 at 08:56
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You CAN use South for apps that are part of Django like auth, and it does sometimes make sense. Please see my answer below. I'm not sure what to do when the accepted answer isn't correct, maybe you can edit your answer to contain my correct answer? – mrooney May 24 '13 at 16:49

score 11 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 07 '14 at 20:13

11

I just ran into this after swithcing branches and app versions, and decided to remove the app that now had no migrations from the south_migrationhistory table

./manage.py dbshell

mysql> SELECT * FROM south_migrationhistory WHERE app_name = 'social_auth';

104 | social_auth | 0001_initial...                                                                   
105 | social_auth | 0002_auto__add_unique_nonce...


mysql> DELETE FROM south_migrationhistory WHERE app_name = 'social_auth';
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec)

answered Feb 07 '14 at 20:13

Tom Gruner

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This is also a quick fix for when you want to delete just a single apps migrations instead of reseting / flushing all of south. – andyzinsser Jun 11 '14 at 19:06
Awesome this solved my issue, although i'm not the OP hehe cheers – NeoVe May 17 '15 at 00:39

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

5

I also had the same problem, and at the end I fixed this by deleting all rows from south_migrationhistory table and run the following command from terminal.

python manage.py reset south

This answer explain about how to reset south migration history.

Edit:

From Django 1.5 onwards reset command won't work. Instead you have to use flush.

python manage.py flush

To understand more about what flush will do read this stackoverflow answer.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

Community

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answered Jun 14 '13 at 10:38

Jinesh

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Note the "reset" command was replaced with "flush" in Django 1.5, although flush doesn't work with individual tables. For that you'll need to use this port of the old reset: https://github.com/gregmuellegger/django-reset – shacker Aug 26 '13 at 20:51

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 25 '12 at 19:00

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I also had the same issue, however this happened to the root application. I discovered that this was due to an empty models.py in my project root from earlier development. I suspect this issue may arise for project applications also.

edited Sep 25 '12 at 19:00

j0k

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answered Sep 01 '12 at 12:29

Dan Ward

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 04 '13 at 20:04

You can do migrations on built-in modules, and it definitely makes sense for data migrations, for example, truncating all usernames, removing invalid emails, et cetera.

In the case of a User from django.contrib.auth.models, simply use: orm['auth.User']

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 24 '14 at 17:16

I got the same error, but not for a django module, but for a module that was part of my virtualenv. I didn't get how south could have done a migration for that module, since it really didn't have any migrations. Then I remembered I had copied the database from an test env that was supposed to be the same. But it turned out the other env had a slightly different version of the module which did have a migration. I ended up deleting the offending row from the south migrationhistory (since it was a test env anyway).

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 12 '14 at 12:17

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I had a similar problem with django.contrib.admin not letting me run my migrations. I solved it by disabling django.contrib.admin in settings.INSTALLED_APPS

answered Feb 12 '14 at 12:17

mpaf

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South migration error: NoMigrations exception for django.contrib.auth

8 Answers8