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
32247	"""App does not have migrations"" message could be more helpful"	berzi		"It has happened to me and probably many many others several times that running 
{{{
manage.py migrate SOME_APP
}}}

would yield an error like

{{{
CommandError: App 'SOME_APP' does not have migrations.
}}}

all while a migrations folder with migrations *does exist* in the specified app. It is often the case that the cause of the issue is simply that the `__init__.py` file is missing from the directory, but that is not at all apparent. Even running
{{{
manage.py showmigrations SOME_APP
}}}

is unhelpful and unless the programmer is specifically aware of this potential issue (and even then it's easy to forget) the problem can be confusing to solve.

I propose a simple change of the error message to:
{{{
CommandError: No migration detected for app 'SOME_APP'. Is an '__init__.py' file present in the 'migrations/' directory?
}}}

Or something to the same effect."	Cleanup/optimization	closed	Error reporting	3.1	Normal	invalid	documentation, errors, error messages		Unreviewed	0	0	0	0	1	0