Django Unable to load the SpatiaLite library extension mod_spatialite on Ubuntu

Question

I'm trying to run sqlite3 with spatialite but when i run

 $ python manage.py makemigrations

im getting the error:

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Unable to load the SpatiaLite library extension "mod_spatialite" because: mod_spatialite.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I'm using

• Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial
• Django 1.11
• Python 3.5.2

and have installed the packages:

• spatialite-bin
• spatialite-gui
• spatialite-gui-dbg
• python-pyspatialite

I also tried adding SPATIALITE_LIBRARY_PATH = 'mod_spatialite' but it still didnt work.

my complete traceback:

    Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/db/backends/spatialite/base.py", line 60, in get_new_connection
    cur.execute("SELECT load_extension(%s)", (self.spatialite_lib,))
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/db/backends/sqlite3/base.py", line 328, in execute
    return Database.Cursor.execute(self, query, params)
sqlite3.OperationalError: mod_spatialite.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 22, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 364, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 356, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 283, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 330, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/makemigrations.py", line 110, in handle
    loader.check_consistent_history(connection)
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/db/migrations/loader.py", line 282, in check_consistent_history
    applied = recorder.applied_migrations()
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/db/migrations/recorder.py", line 65, in applied_migrations
    self.ensure_schema()
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/db/migrations/recorder.py", line 52, in ensure_schema
    if self.Migration._meta.db_table in self.connection.introspection.table_names(self.connection.cursor()):
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 254, in cursor
    return self._cursor()
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 229, in _cursor
    self.ensure_connection()
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 213, in ensure_connection
    self.connect()
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/db/backends/base/base.py", line 189, in connect
    self.connection = self.get_new_connection(conn_params)
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/db/backends/spatialite/base.py", line 65, in get_new_connection
    six.reraise(ImproperlyConfigured, ImproperlyConfigured(new_msg), sys.exc_info()[2])
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/utils/six.py", line 685, in reraise
    raise value.with_traceback(tb)
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/contrib/gis/db/backends/spatialite/base.py", line 60, in get_new_connection
    cur.execute("SELECT load_extension(%s)", (self.spatialite_lib,))
  File "/home/marcelo/.virtualenvs/smart-eye-agora-vai/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django/db/backends/sqlite3/base.py", line 328, in execute
    return Database.Cursor.execute(self, query, params)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Unable to load the SpatiaLite library extension "mod_spatialite" because: mod_spatialite.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Answer 1

You just need to install libsqlite3-mod-spatialite by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install libsqlite3-mod-spatialite

Answer 2

I fixed this issue by changing

SPATIALITE_LIBRARY_PATH = 'mod_spatialite'

to

SPATIALITE_LIBRARY_PATH = 'mod_spatialite.so'

as per this comment.