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
29506	"Misleading migrate ""App 'apps.somethings' does not have migrations."" error message with nested apps"	oliver	nobody	"If you have a couple of nested apps, or apps that are not available directly in the top-level namespace and you use migrate command, and pass the full dotted path to this command, the error message is somewhat misleading:

{{{
CommandError: App 'apps.somethings' does not have migrations.
}}}

In this case,  the somethings app have migrations, but migrate command expecting just app_label.

And there is the other misleading error message.
If you use migrate command and pass nonexistent app in your INSTALLED_APP, the error message is somewhat misleading:

{{{
CommandError: App 'nonexistent_app' does not have migrations.
}}}
In this case, the nonexistent_app does not exist, but the error message make user think that nonexistent app just don't have migrations.

Currently, makemigrations command check for existence and validity of app. As follows

{{{
       # Make sure the app they asked for exists
        app_labels = set(app_labels)
        bad_app_labels = set()
        for app_label in app_labels:
            try:
                apps.get_app_config(app_label)
            except LookupError:
                bad_app_labels.add(app_label)
        if bad_app_labels:
            for app_label in bad_app_labels:
                if '.' in app_label:
                    self.stderr.write(
                        ""'%s' is not a valid app label. Did you mean '%s'?"" % (
                            app_label,
                            app_label.split('.')[-1],
                        )
                    )
                else:
                    self.stderr.write(""App '%s' could not be found. Is it in INSTALLED_APPS?"" % app_label)
            sys.exit(2)
}}}

How about checking that in migrate command?

== This ticket is very similar to https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/29469.
But it is about migrate not makemigrations.
Please read this ticket.
"	Cleanup/optimization	closed	Core (Management commands)	dev	Normal	fixed			Accepted	1	0	0	0	0	0