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I'm new to the Heroku / Django / Postgres game, and running into trouble after following the instructions in their tutorial. Here's my setup:

Installed: Django 1.4.5 dj_database_url Postgress.app 9.2.2.0

DATABASES = {
'default': {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
    'NAME': 'db_name',                      # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
    'USER': '',                      # Not used with sqlite3.
    'PASSWORD': '',
    'HOST': '',                      # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
    'PORT': '',                      # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.
 }
}

and later on in settings.py:

import dj_database_url
    DATABASES['default'] = dj_database_url.config()

When I run python manage.py syncdb:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>
   execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dg/lib/python2.7/site-         packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 443, in execute_from_command_line
utility.execute()
  File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dg/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 382, in execute
self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dg/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 196, in run_from_argv
self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dg/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 232, in execute
output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dg/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 371, in handle
return self.handle_noargs(**options)
  File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dg/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/syncdb.py", line 57, in handle_noargs
cursor = connection.cursor()
  File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dg/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/dummy/base.py", line 15, in complain
raise ImproperlyConfigured("settings.DATABASES is improperly configured. "
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: settings.DATABASES is improperly configured. Please supply the ENGINE value. Check settings documentation for more details.

When I run python manage.py shell, import settings, and look at DATABASES, I get:

{'default': {'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.dummy', 'TEST_MIRROR': None, 'NAME': '', 'TEST_CHARSET': None, 'TIME_ZONE': 'UTC', 'TEST_COLLATION': None, 'PORT': '', 'HOST': '', 'USER': '', 'TEST_NAME': None, 'PASSWORD':

So I know I must be configuring something improperly, but I haven't found the right settings in a night of searching. Anyone seen this before?

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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

You probably want a real Django database backend, not django.db.backends.dummy. For example:

{'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2', ... }
share|improve this answer
Yes, I definitely want that. Problem is that I'm not sure where django.db.backends.dummy is getting inserted. Must be this line: DATABASES['default'] = dj_database_url.config(). How do I give dj_database_url.config() the database default I set up above? – Joe Feb 26 at 18:36
up vote 0 down vote accepted

I had to point configure the database URL as follows:

DATABASES['default'] = dj_database_url.config(default='postgres://localhost/db_name')

I had other issues relating to the psycopg2 package and gcc-4.2, but those aren't covered by my original post.

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