id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc	stage	has_patch	needs_docs	needs_tests	needs_better_patch	easy	ui_ux
17369	Useless error messages in management command execution	Vasily Alexeev	nobody	"Right now [https://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/django/core/management/base.py#L208 BaseCommand.execute catches errors] and outputs quite useless portions of them.

For example, I'm trying to move quite large (and, unfortunately, underdocumented) project from server to server. I know that I need to install a few components, but I do not precisely know which. So I just try running ""runserver"" command and fixing any errors occuring.

But soon an error like this appears:
 Error: No module named exceptions

Ok, how can this error message help me to learn what's the problem? In my opinion, it can't.

But when I remove the try-catch from aforementioned method, I get a helpful traceback:
{{{
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File ""manage.py"", line 13, in <module>
    execute_manager(settings)
[...]
  File ""/[...]/utils.py"", line 2, in <module>
    from sqlalchemy.exceptions import OperationalError
ImportError: No module named exceptions
}}}

Oh, now I see that I obviously have problems with sqlalchemy installation. The source of the problem is pinned down and quickly fixed.

The question is: what's the reason of having this try-catch in the first place, if it serves only to turn a helpful traceback into a useless 1-line error message? In my opinion, it should be removed altogether."	Bug	closed	Core (Management commands)	dev	Normal	duplicate			Unreviewed	0	0	0	0	0	1