Why do i have 'relation does not exist' when just running 'makemigrations'? - django

Question

Django-based project made use of Django 1.6 and now needs upgrade to 1.9. So i just renamed South's 'migrations' folders to 'south_migrations', created 'migrations' folder with init.py in each app that is in INSTALLED_APPS, upgraded all requirements of a project and made changes to code so it would be Django1.9-compatible. Now i want to create native Django migrations running 'makemigrations' but getting this traceback:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/nervosa/Apps/pycharm-2016.1/helpers/pycharm/django_manage.py", line 41, in <module>
run_module(manage_file, None, '__main__', True)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 176, in run_module
fname, loader, pkg_name)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 82, in _run_module_code
mod_name, mod_fname, mod_loader, pkg_name)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
exec code in run_globals
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/iticket/manage.py", line 10, in <module>
execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 353, in execute_from_command_line
utility.execute()
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 345, in execute
self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 348, in run_from_argv
self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 398, in execute
self.check()
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 426, in check
include_deployment_checks=include_deployment_checks,
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/checks/registry.py", line 75, in run_checks
new_errors = check(app_configs=app_configs)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/checks/urls.py", line 13, in check_url_config
return check_resolver(resolver)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/checks/urls.py", line 23, in check_resolver
for pattern in resolver.url_patterns:
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/utils/functional.py", line 33, in __get__
res = instance.__dict__[self.name] = self.func(instance)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/urlresolvers.py", line 417, in url_patterns
patterns = getattr(self.urlconf_module, "urlpatterns", self.urlconf_module)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/utils/functional.py", line 33, in __get__
res = instance.__dict__[self.name] = self.func(instance)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/urlresolvers.py", line 410, in urlconf_module
return import_module(self.urlconf_name)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
__import__(name)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/iticket/iticket/urls.py", line 7, in <module>
from frontend.views import ReturnPaymentURL
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/iticket/frontend/views.py", line 19, in <module>
from cases.forms import SelfTrafficForm, SelfStartTrafficForm, PJCForm
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/iticket/cases/forms.py", line 269, in <module>
class SelfTrafficForm(forms.ModelForm):
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/iticket/cases/forms.py", line 271, in SelfTrafficForm
counties = [(x.pk, x.county.title()) for x in County.objects.all()]
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 258, in __iter__
self._fetch_all()
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 1074, in _fetch_all
self._result_cache = list(self.iterator())
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 52, in __iter__
results = compiler.execute_sql()
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/compiler.py", line 848, in execute_sql
cursor.execute(sql, params)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 79, in execute
return super(CursorDebugWrapper, self).execute(sql, params)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 64, in execute
return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 95, in __exit__
six.reraise(dj_exc_type, dj_exc_value, traceback)
File "/home/nervosa/DjangoProjects/virtualenvs/iticket_venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 64, in execute
return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: relation "places_county" does not exist
LINE 1: ...."main_attorney_id", "places_county"."ds_id" FROM "places_co...
^
When running for separate app, e.g. 'makemigrations billing' i get just the same output. I'm kinda puzzled because even Django's tables aren't created!!!
What is the best way to overcome this?

Answer 1

Your TrafficForm is doing something it shouldn't, which is querying the County objects at import time. While you had an existing database, this was OK(*), but now that you're starting from scratch it will complain.
You should change that form to use ModelChoiceField.
(*) it's almost always a bad idea to do this anyway, because new objects won't be visible in that field until the process is restarted; but in your case I guess new County objects are not often created.