I was not able to debug the migration, but I worked around it via:

python manage.py syncdb --all

python manage.py migrate --fake

I ran syncdb which worked. When I attempt to migrate the app, the SQL generated seems to be incorrect.

$ python manage.py migrate askbot
Running migrations for askbot:
- Migrating forwards to 0178_auto__add_field_postrevision_ip_addr.

askbot:0001_initial
askbot:0002_auto__add_field_answer_text__chg_field_answer_html__add_field_question
FATAL ERROR - The following SQL query failed: ALTER TABLE answer ALTER COLUMN text TYPE longtext, ALTER COLUMN text DROP NOT NULL, ALTER COLUMN text DROP DEFAULT;
The error was: (1064, "You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'TYPE longtext, ALTER COLUMN text DROP NOT NULL, ALTER COLUMN text DROP DEFAU' at line 1")
...SNIP...
Error in migration: askbot:0002_auto__add_field_answer_text__chg_field_answer_html__add_field_question

This is the South expression that seems to be generating the error:

Adding field 'Answer.text'

db.add_column(u'answer', 'text', self.gf('django.db.models.fields.TextField')(null=True), keep_default=False)

South.__version__ = '1.0'
MySQLdb.__version__ = '1.2.5'
MySQL 5.6.19

I've been trying to get Askbot to work in production and I keep getting this stack trace when I attempt to Migrate or enter the Shell.
Everything works fine on my development computer.
What's going wrong?

  File "manage.py", line 11, in <module>  
    execute_manager(settings)  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 438, in execute_manager  
    utility.execute()  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 379, in execute  
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/core/management/base.py", line 191, in run_from_argv  
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/core/management/base.py", line 220, in execute  
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/core/management/base.py", line 351, in handle  
    return self.handle_noargs(**options)  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/core/management/commands/shell.py", line 47, in handle_noargs  
    loaded_models = get_models()  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/db/models/loading.py", line 167, in get_models  
    self._populate()  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/db/models/loading.py", line 64, in _populate  
    self.load_app(app_name)  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/db/models/loading.py", line 78, in load_app  
    models = import_module('.models', app_name)  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/lib/python2.7/django/utils/importlib.py", line 35, in import_module  
    __import__(name)  
  File "/home/spirituality/webapps/askbot/askbot-discussion/askbot/models/__init__.py", line 71, in <module>  
    from askbot.models import signals  
ImportError: cannot import name signals

I'm trying to get Askbot running on my virtual server.

[Fri Feb 14 16:23:05 2014] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] mod_wsgi (pid=8120): SystemExit exception raised by WSGI script '/home/bigB/webapps/askbot/askbotPaleo/django.wsgi' ignored.      [Fri Feb 14 16:23:05 2014] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] Traceback (most recent call last):  
    [Fri Feb 14 16:23:05 2014] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]   File "/home/bigB/lib/python2.7/django/core/handlers/wsgi.py", line 219, in __call__  
    [Fri Feb 14 16:23:05 2014] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]     self.load_middleware()  
    [Fri Feb 14 16:23:05 2014] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]   File "/home/bigB/lib/python2.7/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 45, in load_middleware  
    [Fri Feb 14 16:23:05 2014] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]     mod = import_module(mw_module)  
    [Fri Feb 14 16:23:05 2014] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]   File "/home/bigB/lib/python2.7/django/utils/importlib.py", line 35, in import_module

This is the content of the django.wsqi file.

import os
import sys

current_directory = os.path.dirname(__file__)
parent_directory = os.path.dirname(current_directory)
module_name = os.path.basename(current_directory)

sys.path.append(parent_directory)
sys.path.append(current_directory)
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = '%s.settings' % module_name
import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

Running Django 1.4.2 on Python2.7

In the end, I found that my Memcache instance had been turned off. Once I restarted Memcache, everything worked great.

Turns out, my Memcache instant had gotten turned off somehow. I restarted Memcache and it started working.

Turns out, my Memcache instant had gotten turned off somehow. I restarted Memcache and it started working.

I've been attempting to debug why I'm getting a nonetype error in my production askbot app. I've been able to trace it back to this statement.

I was able to log all the values of askbot_settings.__dict__ . However assignment to my_settings.askbot_settings.as_dict() does not work.

Why do would the assignment to my_settings not work?

CACHE_BACKEND = 'django.core.cache.backends.memcached.MemcachedCache' #needed for django-keyedcache

CACHE_TIMEOUT = 6000

#sets a special timeout for livesettings if you want to make them different LIVESETTINGS_CACHE_TIMEOUT = CACHE_TIMEOUT KEY_PREFIX = 'askpaleo' #make this unique

CACHE_MIDDLEWARE_ANONYMOUS_ONLY = True

I'm trying to get Askbot working in production on Webfaction. I'm not sure what is going on because the app worked fine for a month, then suddenly, it stopped working. I didn't update the askbot code nor did I change anything on the templates.

The Django debug page is showing:

Exception Value: 'NoneType' object does not support item assignment
Exception Location: /home/username/webapps/askbot/askbot-discussion/askbot/context.py in application_settings, line 31

I decided to log the variables to see why I was getting a NoneType exception immediately before the NoneType error is thrown in the code.

import logging  
logging.critical("request[LANGUAGE_CODE] :" + getattr(request, 'LANGUAGE_CODE', settings.LANGUAGE_CODE) )  
my_settings['LANGUAGE_CODE'] = getattr(request, 'LANGUAGE_CODE', settings.LANGUAGE_CODE)

This logged: /home/username/webapps/askbot/askbot-discussion/askbot/context.py TIME: 2013-05-03 13:22:53,209 MSG: context.py:application_settings:33 request[LANGUAGE_CODE] :en

As you can see, getattr(request, 'LANGUAGE_CODE', settings.LANGUAGE_CODE) return "en" for the logging directive.

I'm at a loss for why I'd be getting a NoneType error, because the getattr() worked fine for logging, but for some reason it fails in the actual code.

What is going on?

+++++++EDIT+++++++

Turns out, my Memcache instant had gotten turned off somehow. I restarted Memcache and it started working.

I turned DEBUG=True and I still don't think the settings are defined. I'm getting 'NoneType' object does not support item assignment from askbot-discussion/askbot/context.py line 31: my_settings['LANGUAGE_CODE'] = getattr(request, 'LANGUAGE_CODE', settings.LANGUAGE_CODE)

The settings are visible on the debug page, but it would seem I would not be getting a NoneType error if settings.LANGUAGE_CODE existed.