Problem with migrating a django server (syntax error) - django

Question

I am trying to make a django server for a sociometric badge (https://github.com/HumanDynamics/openbadge-server) for our university's project. The code (and the whole badge) has been done by someone else and I have not myself changed anything, I am simply trying to get it to work. I am able to build the server but when trying to migrate or create a superuser, I get a syntax error. I've been trying to troubleshoot it by myself but I have very limited knowledge of python, django and Ubuntu so I'm probably missing something.
The error implies an error in the line 44 of /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pkgconf/init.py but I cannot find the file so I cannot check it. In fact, the whole site-packages folder is empty so I wonder if I have installed modules in a wrong way? The code is written in python2.7 (Which I cannot change as it is not my code) so I also wonder if the python2.7 being EOL could cause issues? It has already broken some parts, mainly how to get some of the dependencies.
The code and docker files used in this project can be found here: https://github.com/HumanDynamics/openbadge-server
The dependency versions should be fine, the Django version should be compatible with Python2.7 and same for other modules. I've tried changing the versions around but to no avail. Down here is the requirement texts
Django==1.8.4
Fabric==1.10.2
django-grappelli==2.7.1
simplejson==3.8.0
MarkupSafe==0.23
django-pipeline==1.5.4
djangorestframework==3.2.3
djangorestframework-expiring-authtoken==0.1.1
pytz==2015.7
python-dateutil==2.5.3
jsonfield==1.0.3
django-controlcenter===0.2.6
# Configuration
django-environ==0.4.1
# Python-PostgreSQL Database Adapter
psycopg2==2.7.3.2
# Unicode slugification
awesome-slugify==1.6.5
# Import and export using the admin tool
# Using tablib 0.12.1. Newer versions break the import-export add-on
tablib==0.12.1
django-import-export==1.0.0
coverage==4.3.1
django-coverage-plugin==1.3.1
Sphinx==1.5.1
django-extensions==1.7.5
Werkzeug==0.11.15
django-test-plus==1.0.16
factory-boy==2.8.1
django-debug-toolbar==1.6
# improved REPL
ipdb==0.10.1
pytest-django==3.1.2
pytest-sugar==0.8.0
This is the error. From my limited knowledge, I'd gather that it doesn't find the files from /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ but it is completely empty, the dependencies are either installed locally or to dist-packages. Someone earlier said that it was a python3 problem but nothing should be Python3. Could it also be a docker version problem if the build somehow installs wrong things?
Starting openbadge-server_postgres_1 ... done
Postgres is up - continuing...
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "manage.py", line 23, in <module>
execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 338, in execute_from_command_line
utility.execute()
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 312, in execute
django.setup()
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/__init__.py", line 18, in setup
apps.populate(settings.INSTALLED_APPS)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/apps/registry.py", line 85, in populate
app_config = AppConfig.create(entry)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/apps/config.py", line 86, in create
module = import_module(entry)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
__import__(name)
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/controlcenter/__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
from .dashboards import Dashboard # NOQA
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/controlcenter/dashboards.py", line 10, in <module>
from . import app_settings
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/controlcenter/app_settings.py", line 1, in <module>
from pkgconf import Conf
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pkgconf/__init__.py", line 44
class Conf(metaclass=ConfMeta):
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
I will provide information to best of my abilities.

Answer 1

Fixed the issue by adding django-pkgconf==0.3.0 to the requirements. While the requirements did not have the package at all, it was still installed (and used) through other packages and it installed version 0.4.0 which does not support Python 2.7.
Weird thing is that I could not find a trace where it was installed if I installed it without having it on requirements so even when I manually installed 0.3.0, it would still use 0.4.0 (despite seemingly not having it installed) so in order to get it to work it had to be installed through the docker build.