[Django]-Django Shell No module named settings

I had a similar problem, where the same error was being returned when I tried to run
django-admin.py startproject myapp.
A previous answer here helped me figure it out. The problem was that I had previously pointed DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE to a certain file, which I had later deleted. To fix it, I just removed the pointer with this command:

export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=

It seems the path to your project isn’t being recognized by wsgi. This has happened to me, and to solve it I added this to the top of my .wsgi file:

import os
import sys

root_path = os.path.abspath(os.path.split(__file__)[0])
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(root_path, 'project_name'))
sys.path.insert(0, root_path)

Somehow, if your project folder is the same name as the app that has the settings file in it, and if you have __init__.py in the project root folder, it will mess wsgi. I really dont understand why but removing this file solved this for me.

Though Simon Whitaker’s answer (that a same-name dir is confusing things) is certainly on point, rather than suggesting you change your entire extant dir structure, might I suggest:

Instead of using the “malfunctioning” / ambiguous…

import settings

…use the more specific…

from django.conf import settings

If you are using wsgi/uwsgi in production…

I was having the same error:

If you renamed the folder that django startproject created that has setting.py files and wsgi.py , check in the wsgi.py file the line: os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "<your_folder_name>.settings")

In my case i had to rename < your_folder_name> also.

I had accidentally changed my DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE variable using the echo command: echo DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=mysite.settings

I simply quit virtualenv and activated it again, which restored my settings.

I had DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE set to “mealer.settings”

(django-env)ali@a-N750JV:~/snap/projects-on-django/Rester$ export -p | grep DJANGO

declare -x DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE="mealer.settings"

which I removed by

ali@ali-N750JV:~/snap/projects-on-django/Rester$ export -n  DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE

(django-env)ali@ali-N750JV:~/snap/projects-on-django/Rester$ export -p | grep DJAN

(django-env)ali@ali-N750JV:

export -p | grep DJAN found nothing as you see

this answer is based on answer by Paul Meinshausen

my answer might not match the question exactly, but I have to point out.

one reason might be, the directory lack the __init__.py file!

This is my environment files:

[root@hpc-proxy apigateway]# ls -al gateway/gateway/settings/
total 52
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  228 Feb 19 18:19 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root  177 Feb 19 19:00 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7738 Feb 19 17:52 base.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6722 Feb 19 18:19 base.pyc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2539 Feb 19 15:02 shanghai07.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  950 Feb  5 12:45 shanghai07root.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2828 Feb  5 13:00 testenv.py

and I always get the error message like this:
ImportError: No module named shanghai07

So when I created the __init__.py file in the ‘settings’ directory,
the error went away!

I hope my answer can help some beginners.

Since your web app is working, check that you’re running manage.py with the same python interpreter that’s defined in your .wsgi file (and if you append other directories to sys.path in your .wsgi file, make sure they’re in the pythonpath here too).

If you try to import something in your settings file that throws an ImportError, Django tells you settings cannot be imported. Newer versions of django will mention (If the file settings.py does indeed exist, it's causing an ImportError somehow.) and I’ve run into this a few times.

If it’s not that, maybe try using django-admin.py instead, just in case something has gone wrong in your manage.py file. AFAIK there is no good reason to modify manage.py directly.

Please check for compatibility between the virtualenv version and the django version. when it matches, it works like a gem.

In my case the wsgi.py file was working when the system was running normally, but I was getting the ImportError when trying to do a manual manage.py command like migrate or collectstatic.

I checked wsgi.py for the way it imports the settings and noticed that it first adds the settings path to the sys.path as follows:

import sys
sys.path.append('/opt/server/settings')

I added that to the top of the manage.py and it works.

For me it was actually the PATH, so the project wasn’t inside the path, I did this:

export PYTHONPATH=/var/www/project:$PYTHONPATH

If it’s a local project it might be something like this:

export PYTHONPATH=~/my-project:$PYTHONPATH

Questions? comment and I’ll answer.

I tried all the suggestions in the answers above without joy.
My error was the startup command line:

python manage.py runserver --settings=settings 192.168.1.183:8006

When I added the directory where the settings file was located, joy…

python manage.py runserver --settings=<settings_file_dir>.settings 192.168.1.183:8006

The DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE variable made no difference