How to reset Django database?

Question

I'd really like to know how to reset Django database. Specifically, I accidentally deleted a table with this command,

$ python manage.py dbshell
$ DROP TABLE qaapp_question;

and everything messed up.

I followd a stackoverflow post and just deleted the table, and, haha, completely messed up. syncdb stuff is apparently deprecated so cannot use it.

I tried all the ways I googled and found, as followings:

$ python manage.py migrate qaapp zero 
django.db.utils.OperationalError: no such table: qaapp_question

Not working.

$ manage.py migrate --fake <appname> zero
$ rm -rf migrations # I deleted the app migrations folder manually
$ manage.py makemigrations <appname>
$ manage.py migrate --fake <appname>

Not working.

$ python manage.py flush

Not working.

$ python manage.py reset_db 
Reset successful.

Not working.

manually trying to delete the sqlite database file -> resource busy or locked

Not working.

I wanted to restore the deleted table, but I don't care anymore, just kindly tell me how to delete, initialize the database, then be able to rebuild the database with python manage.py makemigrations and python manage.py migrate. Thanks for your help.

Does this answer your question? [Django 1.7 migrations won't recreate a dropped table, why?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26713231/django-1-7-migrations-wont-recreate-a-dropped-table-why) — Yevhen Kuzmovych, Mar 21 '21 at 14:10
thanks. but no. I already tried them. and now I need to reset the database, not about restoring the table. — ー PupSoZeyDe ー, Mar 21 '21 at 14:31

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 26 '21 at 07:57

1

Simply deleting the SQlite database file should work. If you get "resource busy or locked" simply copy the entire project directory to somewhere else and try to delete it. Think of it, will you upload your database file altogether to heroku when deploying? I know it's No, SQlite files should not be included to the git project and should be included in the .gitignore file. So, if the database file is nowhere to be found, Django will autogenerates a new database (reset) for you.

answered Apr 26 '21 at 07:57

gupsevopse

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Downvoting as the answer assumes the database is in sqlite and not any of the other supported backends such as mysql, mariadb or postgres. The question is more general. – Jay M Jul 30 '22 at 21:45

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 06 '22 at 18:02

I was in your situation after cloning a beanstalk environment with the RDS loading a bad snapshot that seemed incompatible with my migrations. All the same commands didn't work. What worked for me in the end was:

python manage.py migrate app_name zero

Then I was able to migrate like normal and the errors went away.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 30 '22 at 21:49

Simply run the command

python manage.py flush

And answer the following question with 'yes'

This will IRREVERSIBLY DESTROY all data currently in the "qaapp" database,
and return each table to an empty state.
Are you sure you want to do this?

    Type 'yes' to continue, or 'no' to cancel: yes

How to reset Django database?

3 Answers3