[Django]-Admin Site: TemplateDoesNotExist at /admin/

I ran into the same problem, and I had to force pip to re-download django.

pip install -r requirements.txt --ignore-installed --force-reinstall --upgrade --no-cache-dir

Note: I know that the --no-cache-dir option is necessary, I’m not certain that the other options are all required.

I am using Django Version 1.9.7 and when trying to add the admin_tools (menu and dashboard) to my application I had a similar issue. I found I had to do three things:

1. Edit the INSTALLED_APPS option in settings.py as follows (note that the admin_tools come before django contrib, ‘mines’ is the name of my application):

   INSTALLED_APPS = [
       'admin_tools',
       'admin_tools.theming',
       'admin_tools.menu',
       'admin_tools.dashboard',
       'django.contrib.admin',
       'django.contrib.auth',
       'django.contrib.contenttypes',
       'django.contrib.sessions',
       'django.contrib.messages',
       'django.contrib.staticfiles',
       'mines'
   ]
   

2. Edit the TEMPLATE setting in the settings.py file as follows (note the ‘loaders’ option that got added, and that APP_DIRS are now set to false):

   TEMPLATES = [{
       'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
       'DIRS': [],
       'APP_DIRS': False,
       'OPTIONS': {
           'context_processors': [
               'django.template.context_processors.debug',
               'django.template.context_processors.request',
               'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
               'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
           ],
           'loaders': [
               'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
               'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
               'admin_tools.template_loaders.Loader',
           ],
       },
   }]
   

3. And then finally I updated my urls.py file as follows (note the include for the admin_tools urls):

   from django.conf.urls import include,url
   from django.contrib import admin
   from mines.views import SummaryByMapIcon
   
   urlpatterns = [
       url(r'^admin_tools/', include('admin_tools.urls')),
       url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
       url(r'^summarybymapicon$', SummaryByMapIcon, name='summarybymapicon'),
   ]
   

I solved this same problem by reinstalling Django with the --no-cache-dir option:

pip uninstall django
pip install django --no-cache-dir

Solved thanks to the answer here.

In my case, I had to change APP_DIRS from False to True

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')],
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

Had the same issue. Strangely I found that sometime the template and media is not copied from your django/contrib/admin. Therefore you need to copy them to your virtual env django directory.

i.e from your /venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib directory you need to

ln -s ~/Sites/your_dj_app/venv/django/contrib/admin/templates templates

and

ln -s ~/Sites/your_dj_app/venv/django/contrib/admin/media media

Inheriting a Django-application from an experienced magician, I wanted to understand the model by looking at it through Django-admin. As the app’s model was not in Admin yet, I created an admin.py and ran into various problems. I tried All-Of-The-Above(TM) and found this:

1. I got the paths confused. I put the admin.py file into the wrong directory. If you have something like .../app/app/app/app/app... make sure you know which app needs to hold the admin.py. I figured that out by putting crap into the file and notice, that it would not crash. Hence ‘crap’ was not executed and something was wrong with the file. Fixed.

2. TemplateDoesNotExist on ‘admin/index.html’ The app’s settings.py was configured to only run django.template.backends.jinja2.Jinja2 as TEMPLATES BACKEND. But Admin needs the standard django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates to make it work. I read, that it was possible to have two template-engines configured. I copied the standard-block from a different app. Fixed.

3. TemplateDoesNotExist on ‘admin/widgets/related_widget_wrapper.html’ While Admin was now working, looking at individual objects was still broken. I searched for the missing template and found it well in place. Changing anything on my TEMPLATES setting would not improve anything. I manually inserted paths in 'DIRS': [], changed options, deleted the Jinja backend, nothing. It felt like was changing the wrong file again. Using the debugger, I found that even without configuring Jinja, it would still run Jinja. Finally, in settings.py, I spotted this:

   FORM_RENDERER = 'django.forms.renderers.Jinja2'
   

   and commenting it out got Admin going.

Not sure tho what it does with the rest of the application but for learning it’s okay.

This issue may happen if you changed something in TEMPLATES in settings.py:

TEMPLATES = [
{
    'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
    'DIRS': [
        os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')
    ],
    'APP_DIRS': True,
    'OPTIONS': {
        'context_processors': [
           'django.template.context_processors.debug',
           'django.template.context_processors.request',
           'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
           'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
        ],
    },
},]

I have stumbled with this issue, alhamdulillah, my mistake was solved when I changed the 'APP_DIRS': False, to 'APP_DIRS': True,

I meet the same error, after several times pip install and uninstall Django, it’s still not work. Then I download Django tar.gz file from Django website, and install from this file , all is fine. Hopefully this can help somebody.

I ran into similar problem trying to configure django-admin-tools for Django 2.0.2

Eventually I got it working. Here’s my TEMPLATES settings.

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')],
        'APP_DIRS': False,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
            'loaders' : [
                'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
                'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
                'admin_tools.template_loaders.Loader',
                ]
        },
    },
]

This worked even as I overrode the default admin template.

Just be sure to take note of where to place the django-admin-tools apps. See @Abrie Nel’s answer above.

for windows user the admin_tools in the templates section should be place in the begining

   'loaders': [
            **'admin_tools.template_loaders.Loader',**    
            'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
            'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',

Despite their usefulness, the aforementioned answers are partial. I opine that the developer should know what is going on at the back-end, viz., “how” is this exception being raised.

As one can see in the exception that the Exception is TemplateDoesNotExist and the value name is the path, and something going wrong with the “loader.py” file. Although I was using Django 1.1.4, I am pretty sure the exception is being raised because of the line (in loader.py) where os.path.isdir(template_dir) is being checked. It cannot find the template folder(directory) in the django folder, which is located in the site-packages folder in the python’s Lib folder.

Intuitively one can say it is because of the inappropriate installation of django. It is, however, a good exercise to find out the cause of the exception by rummaging through the source. When this error occured in my project, I did not reinstall django, instead I copied the folders from root (C:/Python27/django/contrib) — yes I am using Windows — to its counterpart in site-packages and it worked!

I’m adding an “answer” as I cannot with my current “reputation” add a comment.

Following Aaron solution:

In a project with Django 1.4 with docker with the same issue (accessing yourproject/admin/login.html or yourproject/admin/index.html). I used in python.dockerfile this, and solved:

"RUN pip install -r requirements.txt --no-cache-dir"

Before I did this, I verified entering inside the docker, that inside the folder usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/ didnt exist the folder /templates/.

I was reading this before coming to this post:
https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=django-users@googlegroups.com&q=subject:%22TemplateDoesNotExist+at+%5C%2Fadmin%5C%2F%22&o=newest&f=1

For my case, I have INSTALLED_APPS good, but just need to point inside TEMPLATE_DIRS the django admin template:

import os #Put at the starting line

PROJECT_DIR = os.path.dirname(__file__)

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    ... #Another folder,
    os.path.join(PROJECT_DIR, 'relative/path/to/virtualenv/my_env/django/contrib/admin/templates'),
)

And it works

I think there are some packages that you didn’t install in INSTALLED_APPS, in my case I installed ‘import_export’ since I used ‘importexportmodels

I recommend you include ‘import_export’ in your ‘INSTALLED_APPS’ in settings.py. As explained from documentation, django-import-export is a Django application and library for importing and exporting data with included admin integration. Therefore for template of application to be render on the browser, the name of application must be included in settings.py. Unless other, you will get an error ‘Template does not exist’. Common sense, it is not possible to render the template of application, while the name of application is not not included in settings.py. So import_export is an application built in by Django, include it in settings.py.