unable to make RDS queries on heroku

Question

I can access my RDS postresql database on a local machine no problem.

settings.py

DATABASES = {
'default': {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
    'NAME': 'xxxxxxx',
    'USER': 'XXXXXXXX',
    'PASSWORD': 'XXXXXXXX',
    'HOST': 'XXXXXXrds.amazonaws.com',
    'PORT': '5432',
}

I pushed this to Heroku and I get a ProgrammingError at /saferdb/query/

In manage.py shell on heroku I tried to access the database:

>>> from saferdb.models import Question
>>> q = Question.objects.all()
>>> q.count()

got the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 85, in _execute
    return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
psycopg2.ProgrammingError: relation "saferdb_question" does not exist
LINE 1: SELECT COUNT(*) AS "__count" FROM "saferdb_question"
                                          ^


The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 387, in count
    return self.query.get_count(using=self.db)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/query.py", line 491, in get_count
    number = obj.get_aggregation(using, ['__count'])['__count']
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/query.py", line 476, in get_aggregation
    result = compiler.execute_sql(SINGLE)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/compiler.py", line 1063, in execute_sql
    cursor.execute(sql, params)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 100, in execute
    return super().execute(sql, params)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 68, in execute
    return self._execute_with_wrappers(sql, params, many=False, executor=self._execute)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 77, in _execute_with_wrappers
    return executor(sql, params, many, context)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 85, in _execute
    return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 89, in __exit__
    raise dj_exc_value.with_traceback(traceback) from exc_value
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/utils.py", line 85, in _execute
    return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
django.db.utils.ProgrammingError: relation "saferdb_question" does not exist
LINE 1: SELECT COUNT(*) AS "__count" FROM "saferdb_question"
                                          ^

Answer 1

I had a similar issue, also for a Django on Heroku app. I used the heroku-django-template to create my app. In settings.py, the default database is overwritten by the environment variable DATABASE_URL.

You can either disable that in the settings.py or set the env var to the correct value.