Django: Error: Unknown command: 'makemigrations'

Question

I am trying to follow the Django tutorial and I faced the following error when I enter python manage.py makemigrations polls

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Answer 1

In django makemigration added after 1.7 so if you are using older version of Django then you have to change settings.py and add your application in installed app like

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'Demo',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
)

and then you can run command

python manage.py syncdb

Answer 2

First time I add following piece of code into project_name\settings.py file.

                  `INSTALLED_APPS = [
        'django.contrib.admin',
        'django.contrib.auth',
        'django.contrib.contenttypes',
        'django.contrib.sessions',
        'django.contrib.messages',
        'django.contrib.staticfiles',
        #Django REST Framework
        'rest_framework',
        #Games application
        'games.apps.GamesConfig',
                  ]`

After save it, when run following code I got error.

                 `python manage.py makemigrations games`

Then I check the settings.py file I realize that there are two INSTALLED_APPS and second one has not followings. When I added these the code worked.

       `#Django REST Framework
       'rest_framework',
        #Games application
       'games.apps.GamesConfig',`

Answer 3

I did following (for python version 3.6.4) to get this issue resolved:

1. install virtualenv
2. Activate virtualenv

Cheers

Answer 4

I was using version 1.9 and still getting this error. I had unapplied migrations and that was the root cause in my case. I ran 'python manage.py migrate' to apply them and it worked for me.

Answer 5

You need to load the virtual environment before doing it.

Use below code for Linux/OSX:

source venv/bin/active

And the following code for Windows

source venv/Scripts/activate

Answer 6

Migrations were first added in version 1.7, officially released on September 2, 2014. You need to make sure your tutorial matches the version of Django you're working with. For instance, this version of the tutorial covers 1.9:

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/intro/tutorial01/

Or, if you're using an older version of Django, you can change the "1.9" in that URL to whatever version you're on (back to 1.3). Or use the dropdown on the docs page to pick the version and search for "tutorial".