How to solve the ImportError: cannot import name simplejson in Django

Question

I\'m trying to build a realtime chat app in Django(1.7.1). It seems that I needed to install Redis and ishout.js. So I installed them by following the instructions.

Aft

Answer 1

I think the above answers are workarounds.

Django used to ship with simplejson in django.utils, but this was removed in Django 1.5 because json module being available in Python’s standard library.

So you should now import json instead of from django.utils import simplejson, and make necessary changes where simplejson methods are called.

Answer 2

You are using an outdated version of django-realtime.

Upgrade it to the latest version, they fixed the 1.7 compatibility:

pip install django-realtime --upgrade

If the error persists, install directly from github, master branch:

$ pip install git+https://github.com/anishmenon/django-realtime.git --upgrade

FYI, the fix:

try:
    from django.utils import simplejson as json
except:
    import simplejson as json

^{Bare exception clause - zen programmer inside is killing me whispering except ImportError, except ImportError, except..}

Answer 3

This is a bug in the application itself; unfortunately the error still persists in the master branch at git.

I submitted a pull request to fix the error; in the meanwhile you can do the following:

pip uninstall django-realtime
pip install git+https://github.com/burhan/django-realtime.git@import-fix