Changing a project name in django

Question

I changed the name of my django project from oldname to newname using Pycharm's refactor > rename. I have scoured through the project and it seems to have changed the name everywhere. But when I try runserver, here's what I get,

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/melissa/Dropbox/newname/manage.py", line 15, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/Users/melissa/Dropbox/newname/env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 371, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/Users/melissa/Dropbox/newname/env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 317, in execute
    settings.INSTALLED_APPS
  File "/Users/melissa/Dropbox/newname/env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 56, in __getattr__
    self._setup(name)
  File "/Users/melissa/Dropbox/newname/env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 43, in _setup
    self._wrapped = Settings(settings_module)
  File "/Users/melissa/Dropbox/newname/env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 106, in __init__
    mod = importlib.import_module(self.SETTINGS_MODULE)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.7.0/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 127, in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1006, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 983, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 953, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 219, in _call_with_frames_removed
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1006, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 983, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 965, in _find_and_load_unlocked
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'oldname'

Can someone help me with this?

Answer 1

I got the same error when changing my project name, the problem is that you're running the server using PyCharm, isn't it? Hopefully you created your project using PyCharm with Django Support. First of all add the below settings to your wsgi.py and manage.py files,

os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'oldname.settings')

to

os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'newname.settings')

Then go to your settings.py and change the below settings,

ROOT_URLCONF = 'oldname.urls
WSGI_APPLICATION = 'oldname.wsgi.application'

to

ROOT_URLCONF = 'newname.urls
WSGI_APPLICATION = 'newname.wsgi.application'

If you didn't get PyCharm's Django Support, this solution should be performed otherwise you will get the same error again. You can try this by using some other terminal without getting PyCharm's Django Support and running your server with python manage.py runserver command. If your project doesn't have any other errors you can see this solution is working. Then I realized something wrong with PyCharm's Django Support, the help that I have provided is only for who are using PyCharm's Django Support.

1. Go to your Project and click the Edit Configuration Settings.

   

2. You can see the Environment variable still has the previous values, just click the icon in the corner to edit the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE variable.

   

3. Then add your new project name newname, which contains the settings.py file.

   

That's it.