[Django]-Django TemplateDoesNotExist?

Find this tuple:

    import os
    SETTINGS_PATH = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))

    TEMPLATES = [
        {
            'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
            'DIRS': [],
            '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',
                ],
            },
        },
    ]

You need to add to ‘DIRS’ the string

os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')

So altogether you need:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, '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',
            ],
        },
    },
]

If you encounter this problem when you add an app from scratch. It is probably because that you miss some settings. Three steps is needed when adding an app.

1、Create the directory and template file.

Suppose you have a project named mysite and you want to add an app named your_app_name. Put your template file under mysite/your_app_name/templates/your_app_name as following.

├── mysite
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── your_app_name
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── apps.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── templates
│   │   └── your_app_name
│   │       └── my_index.html
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── views.py

2、Add your app to INSTALLED_APPS.

Modify settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'your_app_name',
    ...
]

3、Add your app directory to DIRS in TEMPLATES.

Modify settings.py.

Add os import

import os
TEMPLATES = [
    {
        ...
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates'),
                 os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'your_app_name', 'templates', 'your_app_name'),
                ...
                ]
    }
]

In setting .py remove TEMPLATE_LOADERS and TEMPLATE DIRS Then ADD

TEMPLATES = [
 {
    'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
    'DIRS': ['/home/jay/apijay/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 had an embarrassing problem…

I got this error because I was rushing and forgot to put the app in INSTALLED_APPS. You would think Django would raise a more descriptive error.

As of Django version tested on version 3, You need to add your new app to installed app. No other code change is required for a django app

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'addyourappnamehere'
]

May, 2023 Update:

templates folder can be put just under django-project folder or just under each app folder as shown below:

django-project
 |-core
 │  |-settings.py
 │  └-urls.py
 |-app1
 |  |-urls.py
 |  └-views.py
 |-app2
 |  |-urls.py
 |  └-views.py
 └-templates # Here
    |-app1
    |  └-a1.html
    └-app2
       └-a2.html

Or:

django-project
 |-core
 │  |-settings.py
 │  └-urls.py
 |-app1
 |  |-urls.py
 |  |-views.py
 |  └-templates # Here
 |     └-app1
 |        └-a1.html
 └-app2
    |-urls.py
    |-views.py
    └-templates # Here
       └-app2
          └-a2.html

For example first, you need set "app1" and "app2" to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py as shown below:

# "core/settings.py"

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    "app1",
    "app2",
]

Then if templates folder is just under django-project folder as shown below:

django-project
 |-core
 │  |-settings.py
 │  └-urls.py
 |-app1
 |  |-urls.py
 |  └-views.py
 |-app2
 |  |-urls.py
 |  └-views.py
 └-templates # Here
    |-app1
    |  └-a1.html
    └-app2
       └-a2.html

Then, you need to set BASE_DIR / 'templates' to "DIRS" in TEMPLATES in settings.py as shown below. *I recommend to put templates folder just under django-project folder as shown above because you can easily manage templates in one place:

# "core/settings.py"

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        "BACKEND": "django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates",
        "DIRS": [
            BASE_DIR / 'templates' # Here
        ],
        "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",
            ],
        },
    },
]

And, if templates folder is just under each app folder as shown below:

django-project
 |-core
 │  |-settings.py
 │  └-urls.py
 |-app1
 |  |-urls.py
 |  |-views.py
 |  └-templates # Here
 |     └-app1
 |        └-a1.html
 └-app2
    |-urls.py
    |-views.py
    └-templates # Here
       └-app2
          └-a2.html

Then, you need to keep "DIRS" empty (which is default) without setting BASE_DIR / 'templates' to "DIRS" in TEMPLATES in settings.py as shown below:

# "core/settings.py"

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        "BACKEND": "django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates",
        "DIRS": [], # Keep it empty
        "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",
            ],
        },
    },
]

Then, define test() in app1/views.py and app2/views.py as shown below. Be careful, you need to set "app1/a1.html" and "app2/a2.html" instead of just setting "a1.html" and "a2.html" in render() as shown below:

# "app1/views.py"

from django.shortcuts import render

def test(request):         # Don't set just "a1.html"
    return render(request, "app1/a1.html")

# "app2/views.py"

from django.shortcuts import render

def test(request):         # Don't set just "a2.html"
    return render(request, "app2/a2.html")

Then, set each test view of app1 and app2 in app1/urls.py and app2/urls.py as shown below:

# "app1/urls.py"

from django.urls import include, path

from . import views

app_name = "app1"

urlpatterns = [
    path("", views.test, name='test'), # Here
]

# "app2/urls.py"

from django.urls import include, path

from . import views

app_name = "app2"

urlpatterns = [
    path("", views.test, name='test'), # Here
]

Then, set each urls.py of app1 and app2 in core/urls.py as shown below, then the templates of app1 and app2 will be rendered without any errors:

# "core/urls.py"

from django.urls import include, path

urlpatterns = [
    ...
    path("app1/", include('app1.urls')), # Here
    path("app2/", include('app2.urls'))  # Here
]

Lastly again, I recommend to put templates folder just under django-project folder as shown below because you can easily manage templates in one place:

django-project
 |-core
 │  |-settings.py
 │  └-urls.py
 |-app1
 |  |-urls.py
 |  └-views.py
 |-app2
 |  |-urls.py
 |  └-views.py
 └-templates # Here
    |-app1
    |  └-a1.html
    └-app2
       └-a2.html

For the django version 1.9,I added

'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')], 

line to the Templates block in settings.py
And it worked well

Django TemplateDoesNotExist error means simply that the framework can’t find the template file.

To use the template-loading API, you’ll need to tell the framework where you store your templates. The place to do this is in your settings file (settings.py) by TEMPLATE_DIRS setting. By default it’s an empty tuple, so this setting tells Django’s template-loading mechanism where to look for templates.

Pick a directory where you’d like to store your templates and add it to TEMPLATE_DIRS e.g.:

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
  '/home/django/myproject/templates',
)

Just a hunch, but check out this article on Django template loading. In particular, make sure you have django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader in your TEMPLATE_LOADERS list.

Check permissions on templates and appname directories, either with ls -l or try doing an absolute path open() from django.

It works now after I tried

chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/*

It’s strange. I dont need to do this on the remote server to make it work.

Also, I have to run the following command on local machine to make all static files accessable but on remote server they are all “root:root”.

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/projectname/*

Local machine runs on Ubuntu 8.04 desktop edition. Remote server is on Ubuntu 9.04 server edition.

Anybody knows why?

Make sure you’ve added your app to the project-name/app-namme/settings.py INSTALLED_APPS: .

INSTALLED_APPS = ['app-name.apps.AppNameConfig']

And on project-name/app-namme/settings.py TEMPLATES: .

'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')],

I must use templates for a internal APP and it works for me:

'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR + '/THE_APP_NAME', 'templates')],

add rest_framework to the INSTALLED_APPS if django rest framework. For my case I had missed adding it to the installed apps.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    '..........',,
    'rest_framework',
    '.........',
]

See which folder django try to load template look at Template-loader postmortem in error page, for example, error will sothing like this:

Template-loader postmortem

Django tried loading these templates, in this order:

Using engine django:
django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader: d:\projects\vcsrc\vcsrc\templates\base.html (Source does not exist)

In my error vcsrc\vcsrc\templates\base.html not in path.
Then change TEMPLATES in setting.py file to your templates path

TEMPLATES = [
    {    
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
         # 'DIRS': [], 
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'vcsrc/templates')], 
        ...

in your setting.py file replace DIRS in TEMPLATES array with this

'DIRS': []

to this

'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')],

but 1 think u need to know is that
you have to make a folder with name templates and it should on the root path otherwise u have to change the DIRS value

In my case it was enough just to include my application in INSTALLED_APPS in the settings.py file:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "myapp",
    "django.contrib.admin",
    "django.contrib.auth",
    "django.contrib.contenttypes",
    "django.contrib.sessions",
    "django.contrib.messages",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles",
]

Also, remember that the template should be placed in your directory like so:
myapp/templates/myapp/template_name.html
but when you point at this template you do this like that:
template = loader.get_template("myapp/template_name.html")

django was configured to use templates in project_name/app_name/templates/app_name/template.html when referred with render(request, ‘app_name/template.html’, context)

If you got Template exception the reason is that you hadn’t add app_name to installed_apps in settings.

I had the issue with django 4.1

Check that your templates.html are in /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates dir.

Hi guys I found a new solution. Actually it is defined in another template so instead of defining TEMPLATE_DIRS yourself, put your directory path name at their:

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but the problem for me was that a template had been specified as ….hml instead of ….html. Watch out!

I added this

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, 'templates'),
)

and it still showed the error, then I realized that in another project the templates was showing without adding that code in settings.py file so I checked that project and I realized that I didn’t create a virtual environment in this project so I did

virtualenv env 

and it worked, don’t know why

I came up with this problem. Here is how I solved this:

Look at your settings.py, locate to TEMPLATES variable,
inside the TEMPLATES, add your templates path inside the DIRS list. For me, first I set my templates path as TEMPLATES_PATH = os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'templates'), then add TEMPLATES_PATH into DIRS list, 'DIRS':[TEMPLATES_PATH,].
Then restart the server, the TemplateDoesNotExist exception is gone.
That’s it.

1.create a folder ‘templates’ in your ‘app'(let say you named such your app)
and you can put the html file here.
But it s strongly recommended to create a folder with same name(‘app’) in ‘templates’ folder and only then put htmls there. Into the ‘app/templates/app’ folder

2.now in ‘app’ ‘s urls.py put:

  path('', views.index, name='index'), # in case of  use default server index.html 

3. in ‘app’ ‘s views.py put:

from django.shortcuts import render 

def index(request): return
    render(request,"app/index.html")
    # name 'index' as you want

Works on Django 3

I found I believe good way, I have the base.html in root folder, and all other html files in App folders, I
settings.py

import os

# This settings are to allow store templates,static and media files in root folder

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
TEMPLATE_DIR = os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'templates')
STATIC_DIR = os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'static')
MEDIA_DIR = os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'media')

# This is default path from Django, must be added 
#AFTER our BASE_DIR otherwise DB will be broken.
BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent

# add your apps to Installed apps
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'main',
    'weblogin',
     ..........
]

# Now add TEMPLATE_DIR to  'DIRS' where in TEMPLATES like bellow
TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [TEMPLATE_DIR, BASE_DIR,],
        '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',
            ],
        },
    },
]
# On end of Settings.py put this refferences to Static and Media files
STATICFILES_DIRS = [STATIC_DIR,]
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

MEDIA_ROOT = [MEDIA_DIR,]
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'

If you have problem with Database, please check if you put the original BASE_DIR bellow the new BASE_DIR otherwise change

# Original
'NAME': BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3',
# to
'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'db.sqlite3'),

Django now will be able to find the HTML and Static files both in the App folders and in Root folder without need of adding the name of App folder in front of the file.

Struture:
-DjangoProject
    -static(css,JS ...)
    -templates(base.html, ....)
    -other django files like (manage.py, ....)
    -App1
        -templates(index1.html, other html files can extend now base.html too)
        -other App1 files
    -App2
        -templates(index2.html, other html files can extend now base.html too)
        -other App2 files

Another cause of the "template does not exist" error seems to be forgetting to add the app name in settings.py. I forgot to add it and that was the reason for the error in my case.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'my_app',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

Simple solution

‘DIRS’: [BASE_DIR, ‘templates’],

My problem was that I changed the name of my app. Not surprisingly, Visual Studio did not change the directory name containing the template. Manually correcting that solved the problem.

in TEMPLATES :

TEMPLATES = [
{
    'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
    'DIRS': [r'C:\Users\islam\Desktop\html_project\django\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',
        ],
    },
},

]

put the full directory of your templates file, then in views :

def home(request):
return render(request, "home\index.html")

start the path that after templates to the html file

in brief :

the full path is :
C:\Users\islam\Desktop\html_project\django\templates\home\index.html

• C:\Users\islam\Desktop\html_project\django\templates
  the full path to your template file will be in TEMPLATES in 'DIRS': [' ']

• home\index.html the path that comes after template will be in render( )

For those that tried all the options here but still got the error, mine was a simple typo.

My template file was called "vacation_**list**.html", however, my view had a return render(request, 'vacation_**List**.html'). Notice the uppercase L in list.

My development box didn’t seem to care about case sensitive file names but my production host did, so it couldn’t find the file due to the uppercase L.

You should type 'templates' to DIRS of TEMPLATES in your settings.py file.

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': ['templates'], <--- type here!
        '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',
            ],
        },
    },
]