I encountered an AUTH_USER_MODEL error while trying to populate my database with fake data?

Using Django Using the ORM
1

I wanted to populate my database for testing purposes, so after doing some research, I came across a tool called FactoryBoy. I decided to use it in conjunction with Pandas to extract data from a CSV file and load it into my database. After writing the code, I gave it a try. Initially, I faced some configuration issues, particularly with defining the correct path, as I was running the script directly without using manage.py. Eventually, I encountered an error that I couldn’t resolve, as I couldn’t define the source.

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

Here’s how my project is structured:

My_workspace
  --api
    --users
	  ---__init__.py
	  ---admin.py
	  ---apps.py
	  ---factories.py
	  ---forms.py
	  ---models.py
	  ---populate_db.py
	  ---serializers.py
	  ---tests.py
	  ---urls.py
	  ---views.py
    --my_project
   	  ---settings.py
   	  ---env

Initially, I encountered exceptions stating that the users package didn’t exist, even though the directory structure was exactly as described in the documentation. To resolve this, I used a tool called setuptools to help Django recognize the users directory as a package. I added two modules: factories.py and populate_db.py.

# factories.py
import os 
import django
from pathlib import Path
from dotenv import load_dotenv

# Load environment variables from .env
# Build paths inside the project like this: BASE_DIR / 'subdir'.
BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent.parent.parent

# Load environment variables from .env (if used)
dotenv_path= BASE_DIR /'My_workspace/api/my_project/.env'
load_dotenv(dotenv_path=dotenv_path)

# Manually set Django settings
os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'my_project.settings')

# Initialize Django
django.setup()

import factory
from users.models import User
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model

User = get_user_model()


class UserFactory(factory.django.DjangoModelFactory):  # For Django
    class Meta:
        model = User
		#added the fields 

# populate_db.py
    import pandas as pd
    from factories import UserFactory  # Adjust import path accordingly
    
    def populate_from_csv(file_path):
        # Read the CSV file
        data = pd.read_csv(file_path)
        
        # Iterate over each row and create a user instance
        for _, row in data.iterrows():
            UserFactory(#added the fields)
        print("Database successfully populated!")
        
    # Run the script
    path = "path to the script"
    if __name__ == "__main__":
        populate_from_csv(path)

#settings.py
    # Application definition
    AUTH_USER_MODEL = "users.User"
    
    INSTALLED_APPS = [
        "users"
    ]

#env
    SECRET_KEY=my secret key
    DEBUG=false
    DB_USER=user
    DB_PASSWORD=pass
    DB_NAME=database
    DB_HOST=localhost 
    DB_PORT=5432

I added the users module to the INSTALLED_APPS environment variable, but I’m still encountering this error. Do you have any suggestions on how to fix it?

2

My recommendation in all situations like this is to work with Django, don’t try to work around it.

Create your script as a custom management command and use the manage.py file to run it.