ImportError: No module named django.core.wsgi for uwsgi

The error ImportError: No module named django.core.wsgi generally arises when uwsgi tries reading the wsgi.py file, and comes to the line:

from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application

It can't find this these modules because Django is not installed, or if it is installed, it is not in PYTHONPATH.

If your project is in a virtualenv and Django is only installed in this virtualenv, somehow the path to the Django modules are not in the PYTHONPATH, and thus Python can't find it.

If you are curious, you can insert the following code into the wsgi.py file, and see the PYTHONPATH:

import os
print '===== sys.path / PYTHONPATH ====='
for k in sorted(os.environ.keys()):
    v = os.environ[k]
    print ('%-30s %s' % (k,v[:70]))

If you run a local version of uwsgi, installed in the virtualenv, then the path will be set correct, but if you run a global version of uwsgi it will normally not have the PYTHONPATH set correctly.

You can tell uWSGI the path to the virtualenv, and it will figure out the correct PYTHONPATH. Just use the --virtualenv command line argument, eg:

uwsgi --http :8001 --module wsgi --virtualenv /home/jdoe/myvirtualenv

(The following arguments does exactly the same as --virtualenv: --venv, --home, -H)

Surprisingly, setting $VIRTUAL_ENV has no effect on PYTHONPATH

Strangely enough, if you don't use the --virtualenv argument, the environment variable $VIRTUAL_ENV will be set correctly. Test this by inserting into wsgi.py:

print os.environ['VIRTUAL_ENV']

This will print:

/home/jdoe/myvirtualenv

But the PYTHONPATH is not set correctly, and does not include anything from the virtualenv.

I can't explain why this is.

If you use virtualenv try to add home to django.ini:

home=/path/to/venv/

To test it through web browser:

uwsgi --ini django.ini --protocol=http

In my case, I installed the Django application and everything else for Python3, but the uwsgi was using Python2. Just check the log while running uwsgi whether it is using Python2 or Python3, and reinstall uwsgi if it is not consistent. Look for the line similar to below line in uwsgi startup log.

Python version: 3.4.3 (default, Oct 14 2015, 20:31:36) [GCC 4.8.4] VS Python version: 2.7.6 (default, Jun 22 2015, 18:01:27) [GCC 4.8.2]

Since you accepted the answer which mentions virtualenv, it seems that you use it. In this case make sure that django is installed in your virtualenv directory (say venv).

You can separately install it from pip under virtualenv or manually create a symbolic link (if you are on Unix-like system) to venv's site-packages

ln -s /usr/path_to_django venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django