Django.core.exceptions.improperlyconfigured: the secret_key setting must not be empty - simple solution when encountering the error

Question

I'm trying to run a new project. I do a couple of things like this:

(cb)clime@den /srv/www/cb/cb/settings $ ll
 total 24
 -rw-rw-r--. 1 clime clime 8230 Oct 2 02:56 base.py
 -rw-rw-r--. 1 clime clime 489 Oct 2 03:09 development.py
 -rw-rw-r--. 1 clime clime 24 Oct 2 02:34 __init__.py
 -rw-rw-r--. 1 clime clime 471 Oct 2 02:51 production.py

(cb)clime@den /srv/www/cb/cb/settings $ cat development.py 
 from base import *
 
 DEBUG = True
 TEMPLATE_DEBUG = True
 
 ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['127.0.0.1', '31.31.78.149']
 
 DATABASES = {
  'default': {
  'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
  'NAME': 'cwu',
  'USER': 'clime',
  'PASSWORD': '',
  'HOST': '',
  'PORT': '',
  }
 }
 
 MEDIA_ROOT = '/srv/www/cb/media/'
 
 STATIC_ROOT = '/srv/www/cb/static/'
 
 TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
  '/srv/www/cb/web/templates',
  '/srv/www/cb/templates',
 )

(cb)clime@den /srv/www/cb $ cat manage.py 
 #!/usr/bin/env python
 import os
 import sys
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
  os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "cb.settings.development")
 
  from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line
 
  execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)

django.template.loader.add_to_builtins('web.templatetags.cb_tags')

from endless_pagination.templatetags import endless

from django.conf import settings
 PER_PAGE = getattr(settings, 'ENDLESS_PAGINATION_PER_PAGE', 10)

But in my program, I am getting the warning:

(cb)clime@den /srv/www/cb $ ./manage.py runserver
 ImproperlyConfigured: The SECRET_KEY setting must not be empty.

Can someone explain why the “django.core.exceptions.improperlyconfigured: the secret_key setting must not be empty” issue happened? Where have I gone wrong? Thank you!

lyytutoria · Accepted Answer

The cause: I think this error appeared due to a stale compiled binary (.pyc) file. After all such files were deleted in my project, the server runned again. Solution: If you come across this error, the best solution is don't make any changes seemingly-related to django-settings.

Zoé Maury · Answer

After reorganizing the settings according to Daniel Greenfield's book Two scoops Django, I encountered the same problem.

I solved the problem by setting

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "project_name.settings.local")

In manage.py or wsgi.py.

Update:

The local filename (settings/local.py), which is located in my settings folder and contains the settings for my local environment, is used in the solution above.

You can also resolve the issue by keeping all your settings in settings/base.py, and then creating 3 separate settings files to support your staging, production and dev environments.

The settings folder will look something like this:

settings/
 __init__.py
 base.py
 local.py
 prod.py
 stage.py

Keep the following code in your settings/__init__.py

from .base import *

env_name = os.getenv('ENV_NAME', 'local')

if env_name == 'prod':
 from .prod import *
elif env_name == 'stage':
 from .stage import *
else:
 from .local import *

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Django.core.exceptions.improperlyconfigured: the secret_key setting must not be empty – simple solution when encountering the error