django 1.9: ProgrammingError: relation "users_user" does not exist

Question

I am running into a ProgrammingError when doing migrate, I think it may be related to the use of django-allauth with a custom user. Here is what I do

1/ Create a fresh database with psql:

create database dj_example;

2/ Installed_apps contain django.contrib.sites:

DJANGO_APPS = (
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.sites',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django.contrib.staticfiles',
'django.contrib.admin',
)
THIRD_PARTY_APPS = (
'crispy_forms',  # Form layouts
'allauth',  # registration
'allauth.account',  # registration
#'allauth.socialaccount',  # registration
#'allauth.socialaccount.providers.twitter',
'djcelery', #Celery
)
LOCAL_APPS = (
'tucat.users',  # custom users app
}

3/ site_id is set to 1

SITE_ID = 1

4/ Custom user model is overly simple:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import unicode_literals, absolute_import
from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser

class User(AbstractUser):
  def __unicode__(self):
    return self.username

5/ Makemigrations works fine

# python manage.py makemigrations
Migrations for 'djcelery':
  0028_auto_20160601_1919.py:
  - Alter field status on taskmeta

6/ Migrate returns ProgrammingError: relation "users_user" does not exist

# python manage.py migrate
  Operations to perform:
  Apply all migrations: auth, contenttypes, djcelery, account, admin, sessions
  Running migrations:
  Rendering model states... DONE
  Applying account.0001_initial...Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 64, in execute
  return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
psycopg2.ProgrammingError: relation "users_user" does not exist

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "manage.py", line 12, in <module>
  execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 353, in execute_from_command_line
  utility.execute()
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 345, in execute
  self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 348, in run_from_argv
  self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 399, in execute
  output = self.handle(*args, **options)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/migrate.py", line 200, in handle
  executor.migrate(targets, plan, fake=fake, fake_initial=fake_initial)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/migrations/executor.py", line 92, in migrate
  self._migrate_all_forwards(plan, full_plan, fake=fake, fake_initial=fake_initial)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/migrations/executor.py", line 121, in _migrate_all_forwards
  state = self.apply_migration(state, migration, fake=fake, fake_initial=fake_initial)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/migrations/executor.py", line 198, in apply_migration
  state = migration.apply(state, schema_editor)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/backends/base/schema.py", line 90, in __exit__
  self.execute(sql)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/backends/base/schema.py", line 110, in execute
  cursor.execute(sql, params)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 79, in execute
  return super(CursorDebugWrapper, self).execute(sql, params)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 64, in execute
  return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 95, in __exit__
  six.reraise(dj_exc_type, dj_exc_value, traceback)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/utils/six.py", line 685, in reraise
  raise value.with_traceback(tb)
File "/home/antoinet/.virtualenvs/tucat/lib/python3.4/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 64, in execute
  return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: relation "users_user" does not exist

Any idea of how to resolve that problem?

Answer 1

You have to delete the migrations folder and then, you should do

python manage.py migrate --run-syncdb

python manage.py migrate --fake appname

Answer 2

Your error is caused by the order you run the migrations. Since many apps depend on the user model existing, you must run the initial migrations for your custom user app before those other apps.

If you change the default user model in an existing project, it might be easier to discard all existing migrations (and the database) and rebuild from scratch. The order to apply migrations would be:

1. The core django.contrib apps.
2. Your custom user app.
3. Other custom apps and third party apps.

You can use django-admin showmigrations to see which migrations exists and are planned.