Getting “Error loading MySQLdb module: No module n

Question

This is a much discussed issue for OSX 10.6 users, but I haven't been able to find a solution that works. Here's my setup:

Python 2.6.1 64bit Django 1.2.1 MySQL 5.1.47 osx10.6 64bit

I create a virtualenvwrapper with --no-site-packages, then installed Django. When I activate the virtualenv and run python manage.py syncdb, I get this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "manage.py", line 11, in <module>
  execute_manager(settings)
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 438, in execute_manager
  utility.execute()
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 379, in execute
  self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 257, in fetch_command
  klass = load_command_class(app_name, subcommand)
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 67, in load_command_class
  module = import_module('%s.management.commands.%s' % (app_name, name))
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/utils/importlib.py", line 35, in import_module
  __import__(name)
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/syncdb.py", line 7, in <module>
from django.core.management.sql import custom_sql_for_model, emit_post_sync_signal
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/sql.py", line 5, in <module>
from django.contrib.contenttypes import generic
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/contenttypes/generic.py", line 6, in <module>
  from django.db import connection
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/__init__.py", line 75, in <module>
  connection = connections[DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS]
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 91, in __getitem__
  backend = load_backend(db['ENGINE'])
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 32, in load_backend
  return import_module('.base', backend_name)
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/utils/importlib.py", line 35, in import_module
  __import__(name)
File "/Users/joerobinson/.virtualenvs/dj_tut/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/mysql/base.py", line 14, in <module>
  raise ImproperlyConfigured("Error loading MySQLdb module: %s" % e)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading MySQLdb module: No module named MySQLdb

I've also installed the MySQL for Python adapter, but to no avail (maybe I installed it improperly?).

Anyone dealt with this before?

Answer 1

Run this command

sudo pip install mysql-python;

now you can run your command.

python manage.py startapp filename;

Answer 2

I had the same error and pip install MySQL-python solved it for me.

Alternate installs:

• If you don't have pip, easy_install MySQL-python should work.
• If your python is managed by a packaging system, you might have to use that system (e.g. sudo apt-get install ...)

Below, Soli notes that if you receive the following error:

EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found

... then you have a further system dependency issue. Solving this will vary from system to system, but for Debian-derived systems:

sudo apt-get install python-mysqldb

Answer 3

For me the problem got solved by simply reinstalling mysql-python

pip uninstall mysql-python
pip install mysql-python

Answer 4

I had the same problem on OSX 10.6.6. But just a simple easy_install mysql-python on terminal did not solve it as another hiccup followed:

error: command 'gcc-4.2' failed with exit status 1.

Apparently, this issue arises after upgrading from XCode3 (which is natively shipped with OSX 10.6) to XCode4. This newer ver removes support for building ppc arch. If its the same case, try doing as follows before easy_install mysql-python

sudo bash
export ARCHFLAGS='-arch i386 -arch x86_64'
rm -r build
python setup.py build
python setup.py install

Many thanks to Ned Deily for this solution. Check here

Answer 5

I encountered similar situations like yours that I am using python3.7 and django 2.1 in virtualenv on mac osx. Try to run command:

pip install mysql-python
pip install pymysql

And edit __init__.py file in your project folder and add following:

import pymysql

pymysql.install_as_MySQLdb()

Then run: python3 manage.py runserver or python manage.py runserver