Cannot run `manage.py runserver` on Windows with quotation mark in .env file (TypeError: environment can only contain strings)

[Paul Mestemaker]

We have a .env file with a SECRET_KEY defined as follows
SECRET_KEY="SECRETKEYHERE"

This causes a failure with Django 1.11. The workarounds are:
1) Downgrade to Django 1.10
2) Remove the quotation marks and just have SECRET_KEY=SECRETKEYHERE

This appears to only be a problem on Windows and does not repro on Mac/Linux.

(tmadashboard) c:\development\workspaces\tma\dashboard\dashboard>pip install django==1.10 --upgrade
Collecting django==1.10
  Downloading Django-1.10-py2.py3-none-any.whl (6.8MB)
    100% |################################| 6.8MB 124kB/s
Installing collected packages: django
  Found existing installation: Django 1.11
    Uninstalling Django-1.11:
      Successfully uninstalled Django-1.11
Successfully installed django-1.10
 
(tmadashboard) c:\development\workspaces\tma\dashboard\dashboard>python manage.py runserver
Performing system checks...
 
RUNNING IN DEVELOPMENT MODE. ADDING STATIC FILE DIRECTORIES TO SERVE
System check identified no issues (0 silenced).
May 04, 2017 - 12:46:16
Django version 1.10, using settings 'dashboard.settings'
Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CTRL-BREAK.
 
(tmadashboard) c:\development\workspaces\tma\dashboard\dashboard>pip install --upgrade django
Collecting django
  Using cached Django-1.11-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Requirement already up-to-date: pytz in c:\development\python\python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages (from django)
Installing collected packages: django
  Found existing installation: Django 1.10
    Uninstalling Django-1.10:
      Successfully uninstalled Django-1.10
Successfully installed django-1.11
 
(tmadashboard) c:\development\workspaces\tma\dashboard\dashboard>python manage.py runserver
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line 363, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line 355, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\base.py", line 283, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\commands\runserver.py", line 62, in execute
    super(Command, self).execute(*args, **options)
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\base.py", line 330, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\commands\runserver.py", line 101, in handle
    self.run(**options)
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\commands\runserver.py", line 110, in run
    autoreload.main(self.inner_run, None, options)
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\utils\autoreload.py", line 332, in main
    reloader(wrapped_main_func, args, kwargs)
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\utils\autoreload.py", line 303, in python_reloader
    exit_code = restart_with_reloader()
  File "c:\development\python\Python2712\virtualenvs\tmadashboard\lib\site-packages\django\utils\autoreload.py", line 289, in restart_with_reloader
    exit_code = subprocess.call(args, env=new_environ)
  File "c:\development\python\python2712\Lib\subprocess.py", line 523, in call
    return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
  File "c:\development\python\python2712\Lib\subprocess.py", line 711, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "c:\development\python\python2712\Lib\subprocess.py", line 959, in _execute_child
    startupinfo)
TypeError: environment can only contain strings

[Tim Graham]

Could you please ​bisect to determine the Django commit where the behavior changed? Please also provide steps to reproduce the issue and explain why Django is at fault.

[Mark Rogaski]

This appears to have been introduced with this change.

​https://github.com/django/django/commit/f6671c5d784e744f18bbc9e06dc4fcdb9e10065b#diff-46e69f287173eef41fcbfeba05501954

[Mark Rogaski]

PR submitted.

​https://github.com/django/django/pull/8737

[Tim Graham <timograham@…>]

In fc6b90b:

[1.11.x] Fixed #28174 -- Fixed crash in runserver's autoreload with Python 2 on Windows with non-str environment variables.

[Tim Graham <timograham@…>]

In 37b2602c:

Refs #28174 -- Added 1.11.4 release note for Python 2 runserver autoreload fix.

Forwardport of fc6b90bdb7a9531e988245942f79518308616b7b from stable/1.11.x

[Tim Graham <timograham@…>]

In d9ef8ff:

[1.11.x] Refs #28174 -- Fixed autoreload test crash on Python 2/non-ASCII path.