ImportError is misinterpreted (in contrib.comments)

[Valentin Lorentz <progval+django@…>]

Hi,

I kept having this error when running "./manage.py runserver" on a project:

progval@Andromede:~/workspace/lqdn/memopol2-0$ ./manage.py runserver
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 443, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 382, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 196, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 217, in execute
    translation.activate('en-us')
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/utils/translation/__init__.py", line 105, in activate
    return _trans.activate(language)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py", line 194, in activate
    _active.value = translation(language)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py", line 183, in translation
    default_translation = _fetch(settings.LANGUAGE_CODE)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py", line 160, in _fetch
    app = import_module(appname)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/utils/importlib.py", line 35, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/haystack/__init__.py", line 154, in <module>
    handle_registrations()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/haystack/__init__.py", line 151, in handle_registrations
    search_sites_conf = importlib.import_module(settings.HAYSTACK_SITECONF)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/utils/importlib.py", line 35, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/home/progval/workspace/lqdn/memopol2-0/memopol/search/search_indexes.py", line 4, in <module>
    from memopol.meps.models import MEP
  File "/home/progval/workspace/lqdn/memopol2-0/memopol/meps/models.py", line 4, in <module>
    from django.contrib.comments.moderation import CommentModerator, moderator
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/contrib/comments/moderation.py", line 356, in <module>
    moderator = Moderator()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/contrib/comments/moderation.py", line 281, in __init__
    self.connect()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/contrib/comments/moderation.py", line 289, in connect
    signals.comment_will_be_posted.connect(self.pre_save_moderation, sender=comments.get_model())
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/contrib/comments/__init__.py", line 41, in get_model
    if get_comment_app_name() != DEFAULT_COMMENTS_APP and hasattr(get_comment_app(), "get_model"):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/contrib/comments/__init__.py", line 25, in get_comment_app
    raise ImproperlyConfigured("The COMMENTS_APP setting refers to "\
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: The COMMENTS_APP setting refers to a non-existing package.

After loads of debugging, I editted django/contrib/comments/init.py: I replaced this:

    try:
        package = import_module(comments_app)
    exce*pt ImportError:
        raise ImproperlyConfigured("The COMMENTS_APP setting refers to "\
                                   "a non-existing package.")

by this:

    package = import_module(comments_app)

And I got:

progval@Andromede:~/workspace/lqdn/memopol2-0$ ./manage.py runserver
Error: No module named gunicorn

I have no idea how to solve this, but you could display the name of the module in the error message, it would help a lot.

Regards,
Valentin

[Valentin Lorentz <progval+django@…>]

For instance:

    try:
        package = import_module(comments_app)
    except ImportError as e:
        raise ImproperlyConfigured("The COMMENTS_APP setting refers to "\
                                   "a non-existing package: %s" % e.args[0])

[Claude Paroz <claude@…>]

In ed711c4bd5fd3b6321cae00bbad0876295c5c537:

Fixed #19483 -- Improved import error message in contrib.comments

Thanks Valentin Lorentz for the report and the suggested fix.

[Claude Paroz <claude@…>]

In 0bbc7c2b4921919ae989c6335be3b25676c6c40f:

[1.5.x] Fixed #19483 -- Improved import error message in contrib.comments

Thanks Valentin Lorentz for the report and the suggested fix.
Backport of ed711c4bd from master.