I can't seem to find a way to write into heroku's postgres from my django app

Question

I wrote an app with Django and it has been working fine when running locally. I know deployed it with Heroku and the app run as well.

However, I when I python manage.py createsuperuser it says that I successfully created the superuser but nothing is written into Heroku Postgress DB...so I can login into neither /admin nor my app.

I have been trying debugging like crazy but I can't find the issue. Especially because if I query the DB from django Shell I do see my account, but if I check the Postgress DB of Heroku I don't.

I also checked what DB my python shell is connected to and it seems that it's sqlite, not postgres.

• How do I change it so that it connects to postgres?
• Also, why is it connected to Sqlite on my shell but if I try to loging on adming it checks if my user extist on postgres?

This is my settings.py

from pathlib import Path
import os

# Build paths inside the project like this: BASE_DIR / 'subdir'.
BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent

# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/howto/deployment/checklist/

# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
SECRET_KEY = ...

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG=True
#DEBUG_PROPAGATE_EXCEPTIONS = True

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['localhost', '127.0.0.1', 'produceit.herokuapp.com']


# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'action.apps.ActionConfig',
    'django_extensions',
    'bootstrap_modal_forms',
    'widget_tweaks',
    ]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'mywebsite.urls'

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [],
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'mywebsite.wsgi.application'


# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3',
    }
}

# Parse database configuration from $DATABASE_URL
import dj_database_url
db_from_env = dj_database_url.config(conn_max_age=500)
DATABASES['default'].update(db_from_env)

# Password validation
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators

AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator',
    },
]


# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True


# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/howto/static-files/
# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Default primary key field type
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#default-auto-field
#DEFAULT_AUTO_FIELD = 'django.db.models.BigAutoField'

#import django_on_heroku
#django_on_heroku.settings(locals())

import django_heroku
django_heroku.settings(locals())

Answer 1

Okay, so I've had this very issue so many times when I was trying to upload my website to Heroku. It worked for me the last time when I did something like this:

'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
            'NAME': '...',
            'HOST': '...',
            'PORT': 5432,
            'USER': '...',
            'PASSWORD': '...',

The name, host, user and password can all be found when you create a postresql add on in Heroku itself. You will probably already have a postres add on as default. If not you can add it yourself. You may want to search for YouTube videos, as I found this all from there. I'm not able to remember which one, but if I do, I will link it here.

When you go to your app in Heroku, go to settings and click reveal config vars. Copy the link of the db and paste it somewhere so you can use it as reference. It will be something like this.

postgres://USER:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT/NAME