Why this error/exception?

From django-3.0release notes,

django.utils.six – Remove usage of this vendored library or switch to six.

means, django.utils.six module was removed from django-3.0 onwards.

My codebase isn’t using "django.utils.six" module, then why this error?

This import error could be raised because of two reasons,

1. Most importantly, any of your installed packages are using the django.utils.six module
2. or maybe your codebase using the django.utils.six module

NOTE: Most of the time the first reason is the villain 😖😖

How can I identify which package is causing the error/exception?

The easy way is, look into your last few lines of error traceback, and it will tell you which package is causing the exceptions.

Examples

Corsheaders

In this example, corsheaders module caused the the import error

  File "/path-to-project/project/venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/corsheaders/__init__.py", line 1, in 
    from .checks import check_settings  # noqa: F401
  File "/path-to-project/project/venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/corsheaders/checks.py", line 7, in 
    from django.utils import six

Example-2

In this example, jsonfield module caused the the import error

  File "d:\production\myproject\venv\lib\site-packages\jsonfield\fields.py", line 21, in 
    from .encoder import JSONEncoder
  File "d:\production\myproject\venv\lib\site-packages\jsonfield\encoder.py", line 2, in 
    from django.utils import six, timezone
ImportError: cannot import name 'six' from 'django.utils' (d:\production\myproject\venv\lib\site-packages\django\utils\__init__.py)

Example-3

In this example parler module caused the import error

...
File "/path/to/project/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/parler/utils/conf.py", line 10, in 
    from django.utils import six
ImportError: cannot import name 'six' from 'django.utils' (/path/to/project/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/django/utils/__init__.py)

Example-4

In this example django_mysql module caused the import error

  File "/home/jerin/.virtualenvs/webscraperio/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django_mysql/checks.py", line 9, in 
    from django_mysql.utils import collapse_spaces
  File "/home/jerin/.virtualenvs/webscraperio/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django_mysql/utils.py", line 17, in 
    from django.utils import six
ImportError: cannot import name 'six'

What is the solution?

If the error raised because of some third-party packages like django-cors-headers,django-jsonfield, etc upgrade the corresponding package versions to latest versions. If you are already using the latest version, report an issue with the developer.

If the error raised because from your codebase, use six package instead of django.utils.six module

Install this library: django-utils-six 2.0 for Django >= 3.

pip install django-utils-six

First, install six from pip

pip install six

Second, call six

from six import text_type

For me works, I have Django 3.0.4

As mentioned by Mohammad Masoumi, upgrading the packages will resolve the issue because corsheaders is supporting Django 3.0 now.

pip install --upgrade django-cors-headers

I also upgraded djangorestframework and drf_yasg to avoid this ImportError.

You need to update the cors headers package:

pip3 install six
pip3 install --upgrade django-cors-headers 

Exception:

 File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 377, in execute
    django.setup()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/django/__init__.py", line 24, in setup
    apps.populate(settings.INSTALLED_APPS)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/django/apps/registry.py", line 114, in populate
    app_config.import_models()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/django/apps/config.py", line 211, in import_models
    self.models_module = import_module(models_module_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/importlib/__init__.py", line 127, in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1014, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 991, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 975, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 671, in _load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 783, in exec_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 219, in _call_with_frames_removed
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/django_celery_beat/models.py", line 6, in <module>
    import timezone_field
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/timezone_field/__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
    from timezone_field.fields import TimeZoneField
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/timezone_field/fields.py", line 5, in <module>
    from django.utils import six
ImportError: cannot import name 'six' from 'django.utils' (/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/django/utils/__init__.py)

Solution:

 vi /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/timezone_field/fields.py

Change:

from django.utils import six

To:

import six

I had the same problem.

My issue was using:

pip install django_taggit==0.22.2

I resolved this when I did:

pip install django_taggit==1.2.0

because that is the latest version.

Folks’ ideal solution is an upgrade and clean usage, but a workaround for folks in dire straits is simple enough.

In Django utils create a new file six.py and inside the file put:

import six

NOTE: Not a solution but a workaround for immediate patching

There are a number of libraries and add-ons to Django that use django.utils.six, which of course are now broken. The main one of concern is mysql-connector-python (8.0.18). The simple solution is to use the library external to Django, but the authors of these libraries will need to make their changes (or you could temporarily make the changes yourself….replace django.utils.six with six).

I resolved this issue by installing a higher version of corsheader package.

corsheader v3.3.0 supports Django 3.0.x

django-cors-headers==3.3.0

JSONField Solution:

I used jsonfield and jsonfiled2 packages. But in both cases, I faced the same error.

My problem solved when I have installed django-jsonfield package and uninstall the rest of the packages (related to jsonfield).

# In case you have installed the following packages, otherwise ignore them.
pip uninstall jsonfield
pip uninstall jsonfield2

pip install django-jsonfield

Usage:

from django.db import models
from jsonfield import JSONField

class ModelName(models.Model):
    json_field = JSONField()

I had the exact same problem. Let me tell you how I solved it (fortunately it was simple to do).

So, what’s going on?

You have to pay attention to the traceback Django is telling you (pro tip: start from the bottom):

  File "/path-to-project/project/venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/corsheaders/checks.py", line 7, in <module>
    from django.utils import six
ImportError: cannot import name 'six' from 'django.utils' (/path-to-project/project/venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/utils/init.py)

It tells you two important things:

1. What’s going on: ImportError: cannot import name 'six' from 'django.utils'
2. Where it’s happening: /lib/python3.7/site-packages/corsheaders/checks.py", line 7, in <module>

It is first telling you it cannot import the six module from django.utils, which is quite logical since Django has deprecated the module in Django 3.0.

Now you may ask:

• but hey, I wasn’t using that module!!
• You’re right, but a dependency was 🙂
• Which dependency?
• I’m glad you asked…

This one ==> /lib/python3.7/site-packages/corsheaders/checks.py, corsheaders was importing the module here: from django.utils import six in checks.py (in line 7).

What’s the solution?

This issue is generally solved by updating the package that created the problem in the first place. They probably removed that import and replaced it with something else, if necessary.
Go to the command line and type:

pip install corsheaders -U

What generated the problem?

Django stopped supporting Python 2. Since django.utils.six provided "Utilities for writing code that runs on Python 2 and 3", it was not longer necessary to support this module, so it was deprecated in Django 3.

Django six is not available for Django versions higher than django2, so a quick fix is to install it via pip:

pip install django-utils-six

Then you should be good to go

If the error raised because of some third-party packages and you are already using the latest version, report an issue with the developer. If you did that but you really need a urgent fix, this strategy could make the third party package happy:

    
try:
    # six removed since Django 3.0
    from django.utils import six
except ImportError:
    import six
    import sys
    sys.modules["django.utils.six"] = six
    # similarly for any other six sub-module required:
    sys.modules["django.utils.six.moves"] = six.moves


# finally, import the outdated third-party package below:

import outdated_library

As I understand, You just need to delete tokens.py file at all
if You have a greater version of Django.
And remove all imports from .tokens in other files such as views.py as well.

FYI I got this same error from using the package django-braces. I had used Conda to install it: conda install -c conda-forge django-braces. By default as of the time of this answer (Jan 24, 2023) conda-forge installs version 1.13 of django-braces, which gives rise to the "cannot import ‘six’ from django.utils" error.

To fix it, I did the following:

conda remove django-braces
pip install django-braces

This removes django-braces v1.13 and replaces it with v1.15, which solves the problem. Happy django-ing everyone.