Django Rest Framework - Could not resolve URL for

Question

I am building a project in Django Rest Framework where users can login to view their wine cellar. My ModelViewSets were working just fine and all of a sudden I get this frustrating error:

Could not resolve URL for hyperlinked relationship using view name "user-detail". You may have failed to include the related model in your API, or incorrectly configured the lookup_field attribute on this field.

The traceback shows:

    [12/Dec/2013 18:35:29] "GET /bottles/ HTTP/1.1" 500 76677
Internal Server Error: /bottles/
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 114, in get_response
    response = wrapped_callback(request, *callback_args, **callback_kwargs)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/viewsets.py", line 78, in view
    return self.dispatch(request, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/views/decorators/csrf.py", line 57, in wrapped_view
    return view_func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/views.py", line 399, in dispatch
    response = self.handle_exception(exc)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/views.py", line 396, in dispatch
    response = handler(request, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/mixins.py", line 96, in list
    return Response(serializer.data)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/serializers.py", line 535, in data
    self._data = [self.to_native(item) for item in obj]
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/serializers.py", line 325, in to_native
    value = field.field_to_native(obj, field_name)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/relations.py", line 153, in field_to_native
    return self.to_native(value)
  File "/Users/bpipat/.virtualenvs/usertest2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rest_framework/relations.py", line 452, in to_native
    raise Exception(msg % view_name)
Exception: Could not resolve URL for hyperlinked relationship using view 
name "user-detail". You may have failed to include the related model in 
your API, or incorrectly configured the `lookup_field` attribute on this 
field.

I have a custom email user model and the bottle model in models.py is:

class Bottle(models.Model):    
      wine = models.ForeignKey(Wine, null=False)
      user = models.ForeignKey(User, null=False, related_name='bottles')

My serializers:

class BottleSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = Bottle
        fields = ('url', 'wine', 'user')

class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ('email', 'first_name', 'last_name', 'password', 'is_superuser')

My views:

class BottleViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    """
    API endpoint that allows bottles to be viewed or edited.
    """
    queryset = Bottle.objects.all()
    serializer_class = BottleSerializer

class UserViewSet(ListCreateAPIView):
    """
    API endpoint that allows users to be viewed or edited.
    """
    queryset = User.objects.all()
    serializer_class = UserSerializer

and finally the url:

router = routers.DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'bottles', views.BottleViewSet, base_name='bottles')

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^', include(router.urls)),
    # ...

I don't have a user detail view and I don't see where this issue could come from. Any ideas?

Thanks

Answer 1

Today, I got the same error and below changes rescue me.

Change

class BottleSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

to:

 class BottleSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

Answer 2

I got that error on DRF 3.7.7 when a slug value was empty (equals to '') in the database.

Answer 3

Same Error, but different reason:

I define a custom user model, nothing new field:

from django.contrib.auth.models import (AbstractUser)
class CustomUser(AbstractUser):
    """
    custom user, reference below example
    https://github.com/jonathanchu/django-custom-user-example/blob/master/customuser/accounts/models.py

    # original User class has all I need
    # Just add __str__, not rewrite other field
    - id
    - username
    - password
    - email
    - is_active
    - date_joined
    - method, email_user
    """

    def __str__(self):
        return self.username

This is my view function:

from rest_framework import permissions
from rest_framework import viewsets
from .models import (CustomUser)
class UserViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    permission_classes = (permissions.AllowAny,)
    serializer_class = UserSerializer

    def get_queryset(self):
        queryset = CustomUser.objects.filter(id=self.request.user.id)
        if self.request.user.is_superuser:
            queryset = CustomUser.objects.all()
        return queryset

Since I didn't give queryset directly in UserViewSet, I have to set base_name when I register this viewset. This is where my error message caused by urls.py file:

from myapp.views import (UserViewSet)
from rest_framework.routers import DefaultRouter
router = DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'users', UserViewSet, base_name='customuser')  # <--base_name needs to be 'customuser' instead of 'user'

You need a base_name same as your model name - customuser.

Answer 4

This code should work, too.

class BottleSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):

  user = UserSerializer()

  class Meta:
    model = Bottle
    fields = ('url', 'wine', 'user')

Answer 5

If you're extending the GenericViewSet and ListModelMixin classes, and have the same error when adding the url field in the list view, it's because you're not defining the detail view. Be sure you're extending the RetrieveModelMixin mixin:

class UserViewSet (mixins.ListModelMixin,
                   mixins.RetrieveModelMixin,
                   viewsets.GenericViewSet):

Answer 6

Maybe someone can have a look at this : http://www.django-rest-framework.org/api-guide/routers/

If using namespacing with hyperlinked serializers you'll also need to ensure that any view_name parameters on the serializers correctly reflect the namespace. For example:

urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^forgot-password/$', ForgotPasswordFormView.as_view()),
    url(r'^api/', include(router.urls, namespace='api')),
]

you'd need to include a parameter such as view_name='api:user-detail' for serializer fields hyperlinked to the user detail view.

class UserSerializer(serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer):
    url = serializers.HyperlinkedIdentityField(view_name="api:user-detail")

class Meta:
    model = User
    fields = ('url', 'username')