Import error when deploying Django app using Zappa? - django

Question

I get the following error when instancing my Django app as a lambda function using Zappa.
[1549659279288] Instancing..
[1549659279532] cannot import name 'models': ImportError
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/var/task/handler.py", line 580, in lambda_handler
return LambdaHandler.lambda_handler(event, context)
File "/var/task/handler.py", line 245, in lambda_handler
handler = cls()
File "/var/task/handler.py", line 151, in __init__
wsgi_app_function = get_django_wsgi(self.settings.DJANGO_SETTINGS)
File "/var/task/zappa/ext/django_zappa.py", line 9, in get_django_wsgi
from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
File "/var/task/django/core/wsgi.py", line 2, in <module>
from django.core.handlers.wsgi import WSGIHandler
File "/var/task/django/core/handlers/wsgi.py", line 8, in <module>
from django.core.handlers import base
File "/var/task/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 7, in <module>
from django.urls import get_resolver, set_urlconf
File "/var/task/django/urls/__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
from .base import (
File "/var/task/django/urls/base.py", line 8, in <module>
from .exceptions import NoReverseMatch, Resolver404
File "/var/task/django/urls/exceptions.py", line 1, in <module>
from django.http import Http404
File "/var/task/django/http/__init__.py", line 5, in <module>
from django.http.response import (
File "/var/task/django/http/response.py", line 13, in <module>
from django.core.serializers.json import DjangoJSONEncoder
File "/var/task/django/core/serializers/__init__.py", line 23, in <module>
from django.core.serializers.base import SerializerDoesNotExist
File "/var/task/django/core/serializers/base.py", line 6, in <module>
from django.db import models
ImportError: cannot import name 'models'
I have tried running the app locally using,
python manage.py runserver
and it works fine locally.
However, I get the above error when the app is deployed to a lambda function.
I'm using Django version 2.0.10, Python 3.6 along with an AWS Aurora RDS.
I expect the lambda function instance without errors in the same way as it does locally.

Answer 1

Invoke zappa to keep packaged zip after deploy and check folder structure or try to run the project from that folder.
Did you add Django to requirements file? As i recall Zappa rebuilds lambda package from a fresh virtual environment, installs requirements.txt and applies your folder.
Or check carefully cloudwatch logs for import errors. There are import errors that show up only when the container is refreshed after a deploy, that will not show up for every lambda invocations.