# Why is my view unit test giving a 301 error?

**URL:** <https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/why-is-my-view-unit-test-giving-a-301-error/41778>\
**Category:** Mystery Errors\
**Created:** [July 11, 2025, 8:48am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/why-is-my-view-unit-test-giving-a-301-error/41778 "2025-07-11T08:48:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![F2Andy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/f2andy/32/29160_2.png) [@F2Andy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/F2Andy)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 8:48am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/why-is-my-view-unit-test-giving-a-301-error/41778/1 "2025-07-11T08:48:09Z")

</div>

I have a pretty basic Django app in early stages of development. I want to test the views, and it is not working. More specifically it reports a 301 HTTP response, and the content is:

```auto
b''

```

As far as I can tell, it is not actually using the view method, but I cannot see what it is doing.

I have commented out all other URLs and views to ensure none of them are interfering, and renamed the view method to ensure it is using the right one. If I change the URL, it fails because it cannot find the path. If I change the method name it fails because it cannot find the method. So it seems to be using the right method.

However… I have changed the code in the view method to print a message, then throw an exception. If I run the server, I get the expected exception. But running the test, no method and no exception.

Here is the code in urls.py, stripped back to just the one path.

```auto
from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('orders/', views.order_test, name='order_test'),
]

```

The code in views:

```auto
def order_test(request):
    print('In order_test')
    raise Exception("Error!")

```

And the test:

```auto
from django.test import TestCase

class OrderViewsTests(TestCase):

    def testShow(self):
        url = '/gas_filling/orders/' + str(self.row.id)
        print(url)

        response = self.client.get(url)

        print('Done!')        
        print(response.status_code)
        print(response.content)
        print(response.context)
        
        self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)      

```

And the output (there is a test for the model which is fine; the app is called “gas\_filling”):

```auto
Found 2 test(s).
Creating test database for alias 'default'...
System check identified no issues (0 silenced).
./gas_filling/orders
Done!
301
b''
[{'True': True, 'False': False, 'None': None}, {'request_path': '/gas_filling/orders', 'exception': 'Resolver404'}]
F
======================================================================
FAIL: testShow (gas_filling.tests.test_views.OrderViewsTests.testShow)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "H:\f2_db_github\gas-packing\gas_filling\tests\test_views.py", line 19, in testShow
    self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AssertionError: 301 != 200

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 2 tests in 0.097s

FAILED (failures=1)
Destroying test database for alias 'default'...

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![philgyford](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/philgyford/32/14295_2.png) [@philgyford](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/philgyford)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 11:05am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/why-is-my-view-unit-test-giving-a-301-error/41778/2 "2025-07-11T11:05:59Z")

</div>

A 301 response isn’t an “error” it’s a redirection.

In your test you’re doing this:

```python
    url = '/gas_filling/orders/' + str(self.row.id)
    print(url)

```

But the output shows the URL as:

```
/gas_filling/orders

```

So I’m going to assume the actual test you’re running has this instead:

```python
    url = '/gas_filling/orders'
    print(url)

```

In which case, the 301 you’re getting is because you don’t have a slash on the end of the URL in the test, so Django is redirecting to the version with a slash on the end.

(I’m assuming the `urls.py` you’ve provided is included from your project’s `urls.py` under `/gas_filling/`.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![F2Andy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/f2andy/32/29160_2.png) [@F2Andy](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/F2Andy)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 1:10pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/why-is-my-view-unit-test-giving-a-301-error/41778/3 "2025-07-11T13:10:26Z")

</div>

Thanks, the missing slash was the issue.