TemplateDoesNotExist at /

Question

Hej! Many threads here had the same caption, but none of them solved my problem. I have a Django site an can access /admin (but it looks ugly). But on / there appears the following error page (DEBUG = True in settings.py):

TemplateDoesNotExist at /

index.html

Request Method:     GET  
Request URL:    http://iecl.uni-potsdam.de/  
Django Version:     1.4.5  
Exception Type:     TemplateDoesNotExist  
Exception Value:    

index.html

Exception Location:     /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/template/loader.py in find_template, line 138  
Python Executable:  /usr/bin/python  
Python Version:     2.7.3  
Python Path:    

['/home/python/iecl/lib/python2.7/site-packages/distribute-0.6.28-py2.7.egg',  
 '/home/python/iecl/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.2.1-py2.7.egg',  
 '/usr/lib/python2.7',  
 '/usr/lib/python2.7/plat-linux2',  
 '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk',  
 '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-old',  
 '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload',  
 '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages',  
 '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages',  
 '/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7',  
 '/home/python/iecl/lib/python2.7/site-packages',  
 '/home/django/django']

Server time:    Mon, 7 Apr 2014 11:28:46 +0200  
Template-loader postmortem

Django tried loading these templates, in this order:

    Using loader django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader:  
        /home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/index.html (File does not exist)  
    Using loader django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader:  
        /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/contrib/auth/templates/index.html (File does not exist)  
        /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/contrib/admin/templates/index.html (File does not exist)

In fact, the file /home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/index.html does exist and I also tried chmod o+r index.html without success.

The output of python iecl_dev/manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:0 is

Validating models...

0 errors found  
Django version 1.4.5, using settings 'iecl_dev.settings'  
Development server is running at http://0.0.0.0:0/  
Quit the server with CONTROL-C.

so everything seems fine here.

What perplexes me: The *.pyc files are created automatically when *.py files are run, right? After python iecl_dev/manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:0 there is a file /home/django/django/iecl_dev/settings.pyc created. But it is not created, when I load the page in my web browser. Does that mean, the settings.py is never loaded? And how can Django say, a file, which exists, would not exist?

Edit¹:
My settings.py looks as follows:

import django.conf.global_settings as DEFAULT_SETTINGS
import os
DEBUG = True
TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG

ADMINS = (
)

SETTINGS_PATH = os.path.realpath(os.path.dirname(__file__))

MANAGERS = ADMINS
DATABASES = {                                                                                                                                                          $
    'default': {                                                                                                                                                       $
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'postgresql', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
        'NAME': 'iecl',                      # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
                'USER': 'iecl',                      # Not used with sqlite3.
        'PASSWORD': '<xxx>',                  # Not used with sqlite3.
        'HOST': '',                      # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.                                                                   $
        'PORT': '',                      # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.
    }
}
TIME_ZONE = 'Europe/Berlin'

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

SITE_ID = 1

USE_I18N = True

MEDIA_ROOT = '/var/www/django_media/iecl_dev/media/'
MEDIA_URL = ''

ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/media/admin_media/'

SECRET_KEY = '<xxx>'

TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
        'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
        'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
        'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'iecl_dev.urls'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
        os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, 'templates'),
)
INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
        'iecl_dev.showStudents',
        'django.contrib.admin',
)

TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS = DEFAULT_SETTINGS.TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS + (
)

Edit²:

The contents of `/home/django/django/` are as follows:

/home/django/django/:
iecl2
iecl_dev
templates

/home/django/django/iecl2:
__init__.py
__init__.pyc
manage.py
settings.py
settings.pyc
showStudents
urls.py
urls.pyc

/home/django/django/iecl2/showStudents:
__init__.py
__init__.pyc
admin.py
context_processors.py
models.py
models.pyc
views.py
views.pyc

/home/django/django/iecl_dev:
__init__.py
__init__.pyc
manage.py
piwik
settings.py
settings.pyc
showStudents
urls.py
urls.pyc

/home/django/django/iecl_dev/piwik:
__init__.py
app_settings.py
context_processors.py
models.py
tests.py
urls.py
views.py 

/home/django/django/iecl_dev/showStudents:
__init__.py
__init__.pyc
admin.py
context_processors.py
models.py
models.pyc
views.py

/home/django/django/templates:
iecl
iecl_dev
/home/django/django/templates/iecl:
500.html
admin
changePW.html
editStudent.html
feedback.html
feedback_thanks.html
index.html
location.html
login.html
page.html
password_changed.html
showStudent.html
studentsOverview.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl/admin:
404.html
500.html
actions.html
app_index.html
auth
base.html
base_site.html
change_form.html
change_list.html
change_list_results.html
date_hierarchy.html
delete_confirmation.html
delete_selected_confirmation.html
edit_inline
filter.html
includes
index.html
invalid_setup.html
login.html
object_history.html
pagination.html
prepopulated_fields_js.html
search_form.html
showStudents
submit_line.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl/admin/auth:
user

/home/django/django/templates/iecl/admin/auth/user:
add_form.html
change_password.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl/admin/edit_inline:
stacked.html
tabular.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl/admin/includes:
fieldset.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl/admin/showStudents:
pagecontent
userpagecontent

/home/django/django/templates/iecl/admin/showStudents/pagecontent:
change_form.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl/admin/showStudents/userpagecontent:
change_form.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev:
500.html
__init__.py
admin
changePW.html
editStudent.html
feedback.html
feedback_thanks.html
index.html
location.html
login.html
page.html
password_changed.html
piwik
showStudent.html
studentsOverview.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/admin:
404.html
500.html
actions.html
app_index.html
auth
base.html
base_site.html
change_form.html
change_list.html
change_list_results.html
date_hierarchy.html
delete_confirmation.html
delete_selected_confirmation.html
edit_inline
filter.html
includes
index.html
invalid_setup.html
login.html
object_history.html
pagination.html
prepopulated_fields_js.html
search_form.html
showStudents
submit_line.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/admin/auth:
user

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/admin/auth/user:
add_form.html
change_password.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/admin/edit_inline:
stacked.html
tabular.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/admin/includes:
fieldset.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/admin/showStudents:
pagecontent
userpagecontent

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/admin/showStudents/pagecontent:
change_form.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/admin/showStudents/userpagecontent:
change_form.html

/home/django/django/templates/iecl_dev/piwik:
tracking.html

Edit³:
Ok. This is solved for me now. The solution was a conglomerate of different things. One of the problems was the missing rights. The user that executes Django, could not list the contents of the templates/ directory. chmod o+x templates/ did the job. Then there were some settings in the settings.py, that changed the place to look for the templates from templates/iecl_dev/ to iecl_dev/templates/. I saw this wrong path in the error message in my web browser. But simply reverting the settings.py to the old version, was not enough. Some service(s) needed to be restarted. I simply rebooted the machine and everything was fine. Miraculously, the /admin/ page now looks nice as well.

Many thanks for all your tips.

Answer 1

From what you've shown, I think you may have a problem with your project layout.

Usually, it is set as follows :

├── manage.py
├── yourproject
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── templates
│   ├── urls.py
│   ├── wsgi.py
│   └── wsgi.pyc
├── yourfirstapp
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── templates
│   ├── tests.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── views.py
├── yoursecondapp
    ├── __init__.py
    ├── admin.py
    ├── models.py
    ├── templates
    ├── tests.py
    ├── urls.py
    └── views.py

As you can see, each app inside your project can have it's own templates directory.yourproject is a bit particuliar, because it also stores unique files, such as settings.pyand wsgi.py. However, you can consider and use it as an app.

Now, if you want to use a template stored in yourproject/templates, you'll have to add yourproject to your INSTALLED_APPS settings.

Does it helps ? If not, can you edit your original post with your project layout ?

Answer 2

I know this is late, but the solutions mentioned here did not work for me. So here is what works:

1. inside the settings.py file, add your appConfig in installed apps.

INSTALLED_APPS = [ '...', 'AppName.apps.AppNameConfig', ]

2. create a templates directory appName/templates/appName. (where appName is the name of your app).

3. When you call your render function, then you can pass it templates.name.html. Like so:

return render(request, 'templates/blog.html')

Answer 3

I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong with my 'templates' directory and figured out :

You may have forgotten to add TEMPLATE_DIR in the following segment of settings.py :

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [],
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

So it should have 'DIRS': [TEMPLATE_DIR,], instead of 'DIRS': [],

Answer 4

The reason might be that django is trying to look for your templates directory in the directory with your setting.py file Whereas actually the templates directory is in the parent directory. Try doing something like this in your settings.py

SETTINGS_PATH = os.path.dirname(__file__)
PROJECT PATH = os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, os.pardir)
PROJECT_PATH = os.path.abspath(PROJECT_PATH)
TEMPLATES_PATH = os.path.join(PROJECT_PATH, "templates")

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    TEMPLATES_PATH,
)

The error usually is due to incorrectly configured templates directory