My PostGIS database looks fine but GeoDjango thinks otherwise... why?

Question

I'm trying to set up a GeoDjango app to test an earlier problem I was having. I've set up a postgresql database, created a new Django project and app, but when I try ./manage.py syncdb I get this:

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Cannot determine PostGIS version for database "django_geotest". GeoDjango requires at least PostGIS version 1.3. Was the database created from a spatial database template?

Which I don't understand as I've previously been through all the installation of GeoDjango's requirements, and created this django_geotest database by doing this:

$ createdb -T template_postgis django_geotest

And it looks like the database is correctly set up:

django_geotest=# SELECT PostGIS_full_version();
                                     postgis_full_version                                          
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 POSTGIS="1.5.3" GEOS="3.2.2-CAPI-1.6.2" PROJ="Rel. 4.7.1, 23 September 2009" LIBXML="2.7.3" USE_STATS
(1 row)

Describing the database, I get this:

django_geotest=# \d                
             List of relations
 Schema |       Name        | Type  | Owner 
--------+-------------------+-------+-------
 public | geography_columns | view  | phil
 public | geometry_columns  | table | phil
 public | spatial_ref_sys   | table | phil
(3 rows)

So now I'm stuck as to what to try next... My knowledge of postgresql and its templates etc isn't that great. Any ideas? Thanks.

Answer 1

I had the same problem with PostgreSQL 9.3 and PostGIS 2.1 installed on OS X 10.9.1 using homebrew.

For this particular issue, you only need to add this line:

POSTGIS_VERSION = ( 2, 1 )

using the comma separated number for your PostGIS version to settings.py.

I'm not sure why, but Django's having trouble reading the version information from PostGIS.