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What I'm trying to do: Deploy my django app to render.com with a postgres database. I'm following the render guide: Getting Started with Django on Render.

Problem: I am getting a build failed log error saying the following: django.db.utils.OperationalError: could not translate host name "***" to address: Name or service not known (I have omitted the actual host name here).

What research I have done: I have searched the error extensively, however all of the highly rated solutions I have encountered so far are based on using Docker like this which I am not using.

settings.py (snippet):

import dj_database_url

DEBUG = 'RENDER' not in os.environ

if DEBUG:

    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
            'NAME': BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3',
        }
    }

if not DEBUG:

    DATABASES = {
    'default': dj_database_url.config(
    default=os.environ.get('DATABASE_URL'),
    )
  }

In my render.com environmental variables, DATABASE_URL is saved with the postgres URL given by render which includes the database name, hostname, username and password. It follows this format: postgres://USER:PASSWORD@INTERNAL_HOST:PORT/DATABASE

Olney1
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3 Answers3

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If you are using render.yaml for deploying then you have to specify the services region. The region should be same as your database region.

source: https://community.render.com/t/django-could-not-translate-host-name-to-address/6187/2

render.yaml

databases:
    - name: berry

services:
  - type: web
    name: berry-service
    plan: free
    env: python
    region: singapore
    buildCommand: "./build.sh"
    startCommand: "gunicorn core.wsgi:application"
    envVars:
      - key: DATABASE_URL
        fromDatabase:
          name: berry
          property: connectionString
      - key: SECRET_KEY
        generateValue: true
      - key: WEB_CONCURRENCY
        value: 4

Screenshots

enter image description here

Mominur Rahman
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  • This is really helpful, my database is in Oregon and my Web Service is in Frankfurt. I'm in Settings > General in the Render.com dashboard but I can't see an option to change the region. Let me create a new Web Service and I'll confirm a bit later if this works. – Olney1 Dec 20 '22 at 07:35
  • "The region of a service cannot be changed once it's created.", You can't change the region. You have to create a new one. – Mominur Rahman Dec 20 '22 at 07:54
  • Thank you, I can confirm that having the Web Service and Database in different regions was the cause of this error for me. – Olney1 Dec 20 '22 at 10:13
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I make the following and it work fine for me:

if DJANGO_ENV == 'development':
    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
            'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
        }
    }
elif len(sys.argv) > 0 and sys.argv[1] != 'collectstatic':
    if os.environ.get('DATABASE_URL', None) is None:
        raise Exception('DATABASE_URL environment variable not defined')
    DATABASES = {
        'default': dj_database_url.config(conn_max_age=60, ssl_require=True)
    }
Mahmoud Nasser
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  • Thanks for the quick response, I tried this with and without your revised conditionals adapted to my code but I get the same error. Interesting that you don't have any config other than connection and ssl parameters and this still works? – Olney1 Dec 19 '22 at 16:06
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The error is because your servers are hosted in different regions, so your host name must contain the hostname+server URL e.g. dpg-ch1ecbbut4m01rpg4ud0-a.frankfurt-postgres.render.com

Extract this from the External Database URL.

I hope this helps someone.

Femolak
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