On syncdb getting TypeError: Item in ``from list'' not a string

Have been struggling for two days with this issue: after a pip install of askbot, and setup etc, when i run python manage.py syncdb, i get an error saying

WARNING!!! You are using a 'locmem' (local memory) caching backend,
which is OK for a low volume site running on a single-process server.
For a multi-process configuration it is neccessary to have a production
cache system, such as redis or memcached.

With local memory caching and multi-process setup you might intermittently
see outdated content on your site.

TypeError: Item in ``from list'' not a string

It is the typeError that does not go away - i googled for hours together and found that the issue could be a force_str so now my settings.py is full of force_str wherever i could find a string but of no use. The TypeError just does not go away.

PLS HELP !!