Error loading MySQLdb module: No module named 'MySQLdb'

Question

I have tried a lot to solve this issue but I did not solve it. I have searched a lot on google and stackoverflow, no option is working for me. Please help me. Thanks in advance. I am using django 1.10, python 3.4. I have tried :

1. pip install mysqldb.
2. pip install mysql.
3. pip install mysql-python.
4. pip install MySQL-python.
5. easy_install mysql-python.
6. easy_install MySQL-python.

Anything else left ?

      C:\Users\benq\Desktop\dimo-develop\Project>python manage.py runserver
Unhandled exception in thread started by <function check_errors.<locals>.wrapper at 0x0332D348>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\db\backends\mysql\base.py", line 25, in <module>
    import MySQLdb as Database
ImportError: No module named 'MySQLdb'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\utils\autoreload.py", line 226, in wrapper
    fn(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\commands\runserver.py", line 109, in inner_run
    autoreload.raise_last_exception()
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\utils\autoreload.py", line 249, in raise_last_exception
    six.reraise(*_exception)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\utils\six.py", line 685, in reraise
    raise value.with_traceback(tb)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\utils\autoreload.py", line 226, in wrapper
    fn(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\__init__.py", line 18, in setup
    apps.populate(settings.INSTALLED_APPS)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\apps\registry.py", line 108, in populate
    app_config.import_models(all_models)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\apps\config.py", line 202, in import_models
    self.models_module = import_module(models_module_name)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\importlib\__init__.py", line 109, in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 2254, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 2237, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 2226, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1200, in _load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1129, in _exec
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1471, in exec_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 321, in _call_with_frames_removed
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\contrib\auth\models.py", line 4, in <module>
    from django.contrib.auth.base_user import AbstractBaseUser, BaseUserManager
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\contrib\auth\base_user.py", line 49, in <module>
    class AbstractBaseUser(models.Model):
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\base.py", line 108, in __new__
    new_class.add_to_class('_meta', Options(meta, app_label))
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\base.py", line 299, in add_to_class
    value.contribute_to_class(cls, name)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\options.py", line 263, in contribute_to_class
    self.db_table = truncate_name(self.db_table, connection.ops.max_name_length())
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\db\__init__.py", line 36, in __getattr__
    return getattr(connections[DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS], item)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\db\utils.py", line 212, in __getitem__
    backend = load_backend(db['ENGINE'])
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\db\utils.py", line 116, in load_backend
    return import_module('%s.base' % backend_name)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\importlib\__init__.py", line 109, in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\django\db\backends\mysql\base.py", line 28, in <module>
    raise ImproperlyConfigured("Error loading MySQLdb module: %s" % e)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading MySQLdb module: No module named 'MySQLdb'

Answer 1

MySQLdb is the interface to MySQL database. As mentioned by other posts, MySQLdb doesn't support Python 3.x. I used PyMySQL as the replacement. You need to install it first:

pip install PyMySQL

The next step is to replace 'MySQLdb' with 'pymysql' in all the codes, which is intimidating. Luckily, PyMySQL can be loaded as MySQLdb dyanamically. In order to achieve it in Django, you need to add the following lines to __init__.py file under the dir of the project's default app (If your have a project named 'myproject', add lines to myproject/myproject/init.py):

import pymysql
pymysql.install_as_MySQLdb()

This __init__.py would be executed when you run the Django project, and MySQLdb will be replaced. You problem is then solved.