How to set AUTH_USER_MODEL for a non 'app_label.ModelName' app format

Using Django Forms & APIs
1

The following error is thrown after setting AUTH_USER_MODEL = "bsapi.core.User":

ValueError: Invalid model reference 'bsapi.core.User'. String model references must be of the form 'app_label.ModelName'.
  • The APP is registered like:
    INSTALLED_APPS = [
         ...
        "bsapi.core.apps.CoreConfig",
        "second_app.apps.SecondAppConfig",
         ...
    ]
  • The core APP config is as
class CoreConfig(AppConfig):
    name = "bsapi.core"
  • The structure of the project is
- bsapi
    - core
        - apps.py
- second_app
    - settings.py
    - apps.py

How can I set AUTH_USER_MODEL for an app where the name has “.”.

2

Where is that user model defined?

Briefly, django.apps.config.AppConfig.get_model is looking in the “apps registry” for that model. So you don’t specify the model using an import path, it’s specified in AUTH_USER_MODEL using the app.model name convention.

3

The User model is under bsapi.core.models.py

- bsapi
    - core
        - apps.py
        - models.py
- second_app
    - settings.py
    - apps.py
4

Ok, I should have been more clear in my previous response.

The models are stored by app label, not by app name. (See Applications | Django documentation | Django)

What this means is that you can either define a label for your app in your AppConfig, or assuming there’s no conflict with any other apps, use the default, which will be core.

e.g. AUTH_USER_MODEL = "core.User"

5

Changed the app label to core1 in AppConfig:

class CoreConfig(AppConfig):
    name = "bsapi.core"
    label = "core"

And changed the AUTH_USER_MODEL to AUTH_USER_MODEL = "core.User" , and now I’m getting the following error:

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: AUTH_USER_MODEL refers to model 'core.User' that has not been installed

6

Double-check your settings file to make sure that you don’t have either two lines for AUTH_USER_MODEL in it, or that you don’t have a typo for that line.

7

Don’t know if the following info bellow is relevant:

(Pdb) settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL
'core.User'
(Pdb) django_apps.get_model(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, require_ready=False)
*** LookupError: App 'core' doesn't have a 'User' model.
(Pdb) django_apps.is_installed("core")
False
(Pdb) django_apps.is_installed("bsapi.core")
True
(Pdb)

Looks like the app has no models at the moment the import_module is called

(Pdb) django_apps.all_models
defaultdict(<class 'dict'>, {'runserver_nostatic': {}, 'admin': {'logentry': <class 'django.contrib.admin.models.LogEntry'>}, 'contenttypes': {'contenttype': <class 'django.contrib.contenttypes.models.ContentType'>}, 'core': {}, 'auth': {'permission': <class 'django.contrib.auth.models.Permission'>, 'group_permissions': <class 'django.contrib.auth.models.Group_permissions'>, 'group': <class 'django.contrib.auth.models.Group'>, 'user': <class 'django.contrib.auth.models.User'>}, 'sessions': {'session': <class 'django.contrib.sessions.models.Session'>}, 'messages': {}, 'staticfiles': {}, 'django_cleanup': {}, 'anymail': {}, 'rest_framework': {}, 'authtoken': {'token': <class 'rest_framework.authtoken.models.Token'>, 'tokenproxy': <class 'rest_framework.authtoken.models.TokenProxy'>}, 'zizoo': {}})

As you can see, core is empty. Does this help?

8

Hmmm,… I wouldn’t think it would matter - my understanding is that that’s the purpose behind the require_ready=False parameter. From those docs:

Requires the app registry to be fully populated unless the require_ready argument is set to False

Those docs also refer to Applications | Django documentation | Django, which includes:

Setting require_ready to False allows looking up models while the app registry is being populated, specifically during the second phase where it imports models. …
The main use case is to configure model classes with settings, such as AUTH_USER_MODEL.

I freely admin, my knowledge of the Django initialization process is at best, sparse.
I would not be surprised to find out the AUTH_USER_MODEL just isn’t going to work in a model not directly in a “root” app directory. (I’ve never worked with, nor ever encountered a need or desire to try and segregate code like that.)