AttributeError: 'Settings' object has no attribute 'ROOT_URLCONF'

Question

Following on from my last question Error: No module named psycopg2.extensions, I have updated my mac OS to Mountain Lion and installed Xcode. I have also installed psycopg2 using 'sudo port install py27-psycopg2'. I am now trying to run 'python manage.py runserver' but am receiving this error

AttributeError: 'Settings' object has no attribute 'ROOT_URLCONF'

Any help on how to fix this and get my localhost running?

Answer 1

From django docs:

A Django settings file contains all the configuration of your Django installation. When you use Django, you have to tell it which settings you're using. Do this by using an environment variable, DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE.

The value of DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE should be in Python path syntax, e.g. mysite.settings. Note that the settings module should be on the Python import search path.

And

ROOT_URLCONF

Default: Not defined

A string representing the full Python import path to your root URLconf. For example: "mydjangoapps.urls". Can be overridden on a per-request basis by setting the attribute urlconf on the incoming HttpRequest object. See How Django processes a request for details.

Answer 2

If you are using multiple settings files, be sure to import the base settings in all the other settings files. This was how I got this error.

Answer 3

If you're working on a Django project, the root of your project(ROOT_URLCONF= variable) isn't defined in your settings.py file, or at least it isn't defined properly.

If you don't have a settings.py file, this block of code should fix the issue:

from django.conf import settings

settings.configure(
# ...
    ROOT_URLCONF=__name__,
# ...
    ),
)

What that does is specify the root of your project runserver knows where to find your project.

If do have a settings.py file, then find that variable and add __name__ to it.