Django AppRegistryNotReady when running Unittests from vscode

Question

My UnitTest test cases in a Django project run fine when running them directly from the Django utility (python manage.py test). However, when trying to run them from VSCode's test explorer, I get django.core.exceptions.AppRegistryNotReady: Apps aren't loaded yet.. I found several similar questions that were already answered here on SO, but none of the solutions seem to work. Here's what I tried:

• import my classes (e.g. models) within the SetUpTestData method and the actual test methods of the test class, rather than at the top of the file. This seemed to help a bit, in the sense that the tests now do show up in the test explorer (previously they didn't), but I still get an error when running them.

• set the DJANGO_SETINGS_MODULE environment variable at the top of the file containing the test class:

   import os
   os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "my_project.settings")
  

• add a .env file to my root directory, containing DJANGO_SETINGS_MODULE = my_project.settings

• add a configuration with purpose debug-test to launch.json:

   "configurations": [
       {
           "name": "Django test",
           "type": "python",
           "request": "launch",
           "program": "${workspaceFolder}\\manage.py",
           "args": [
               "test"
           ],
           "purpose": ["debug-test"],
           "django": true,
           "justMyCode": true
       }
   ]
  

• remove tests.py from my app folder, as my tests are stored in a separate folder (and apparently Django can't have both)

My folder structure looks like this:

root
  |_ my_app
      |_ tests
          |_ __init__.py
          |_ test_models.py
  |_ my_project

For the sake of completeness, I have the following in settings.json:

{
    "python.testing.unittestArgs": [
        "-v",
        "-s",
        ".",
        "-p",
        "test_*.py"
    ],
    "python.testing.pytestEnabled": false,
    "python.testing.unittestEnabled": true
}

Is there any way to make VSCode's test explorer play nice with Django and UnitTest?

Answer 1

You can try to do the following steps:

1. Create a __init__.py file in your tests directory (if it doesn't already exist), and add the following code:

import os
import django

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "my_project.settings")
django.setup()

These codes manually set the Django settings module and initializes Django.

2. In your settings.json, change the python.testing.unittestArgs to point to your tests directory:

{
    "python.testing.unittestArgs": [
        "-v",
        "-s",
        "./my_app/tests", 
        "-p",
        "test_*.py"
    ],
    "python.testing.pytestEnabled": false,
    "python.testing.unittestEnabled": true
}

This tells VS Code to look for tests in the my_app/tests directory.