Django Templatedoesnotexist?

Django Templatedoesnotexist?

My local machine is running Python 2.5 and Nginx on Ubuntu 8.10, with Django builded from latest development trunk.

For every URL I request, it throws:

TemplateDoesNotExist at /appname/path appname/template_name.html

Django tried loading these templates, in this order: * Using loader django.template.loaders.filesystem.function: * Using loader django.template.loaders.app_directories.function:

TEMPLATE_DIRS ('/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates',)

Is it looking for /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/appname/template_name.html in this case? The weird thing is this file does existed on disk. Why can't Django locate it?

I run the same application on a remote server with Python 2.6 on Ubuntu 9.04 without such problem. Other settings are the same.

Is there anything misconfigured on my local machine, or what could possibly have caused such errors that I should look into?

In my settings.py, I have specified:

SETTINGS_PATH = os.path.normpath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
# Find templates in the same folder as settings.py.
TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, 'templates'),
)

It should be looking for the following files:

  • /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/appname1/template1.html
  • /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/appname1/template2.html
  • /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/appname2/template3.html
  • ...

All the above files exist on disk.

Solved

It works now after I tried:

chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/*

It's strange. I don't need to do this on the remote server to make it work.

2

30 Answers

First solution:

These settings

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, 'templates'),
)

mean that Django will look at the templates from templates/ directory under your project.

Assuming your Django project is located at /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/ then with your settings django will look for the templates under /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/

So in that case we want to move our templates to be structured like this:

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/template1.html
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/template2.html
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/template3.html

Second solution:

If that still doesn't work and assuming that you have the apps configured in settings.py like this:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'appname1',
    'appname2',
    'appname3',
)

By default Django will load the templates under templates/ directory under every installed apps. So with your directory structure, we want to move our templates to be like this:

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/appname1/templates/template1.html
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/appname2/templates/template2.html
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/appname3/templates/template3.html

SETTINGS_PATH may not be defined by default. In which case, you will want to define it (in settings.py):

import os
SETTINGS_PATH = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))
10

Find this tuple:

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

    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',
                ],
            },
        },
    ]

You need to add to 'DIRS' the string

os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, 'templates')

So altogether you need:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, 'templates')],
        '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',
            ],
        },
    },
]
4

If you encounter this problem when you add an app from scratch. It is probably because that you miss some settings. Three steps is needed when adding an app.

1、Create the directory and template file.

Suppose you have a project named mysite and you want to add an app named your_app_name. Put your template file under mysite/your_app_name/templates/your_app_name as following.

├── mysite
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── your_app_name
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── apps.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── templates
│   │   └── your_app_name
│   │       └── my_index.html
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── views.py
Sarah Jenkins
Author

Sarah Jenkins

Sarah Jenkins is a veteran tech journalist with over 12 years of experience covering artificial intelligence, mobile innovations, and digital ethics. Her insights have appeared in leading technology publications worldwide.