Django 1.9 ImportError for import_module

Question

When trying to run either runserver or shell using manage.py I get an ImportError exception. I'm using Django 1.9.

ImportError: No module named 'django.utils.importlib'

Answer 1

django.utils.importlib is a compatibility library for when Python 2.6 was still supported. It has been obsolete since Django 1.7, which dropped support for Python 2.6, and is removed in 1.9 per the deprecation cycle.

Use Python's import_module function instead:

from importlib import import_module

The reason you can import it from django.utils.module_loading is that importlib.import_module is imported in that module, it is not because module_loading in any way defines the actual function.

Since django.utils.module_loading.import_module is not part of the public API, it can be removed at any time if it is no longer used - even in a minor version upgrade.

Answer 2

I solved this with the following:

try:
    # Django versions >= 1.9
    from django.utils.module_loading import import_module
except ImportError:
    # Django versions < 1.9
    from django.utils.importlib import import_module