NameError: name 'patterns' is not defined` when installing Graphite

Question

I am trying to install graphite on my RPi following this tutorial. https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-graphite-on-an-ubuntu-14-04-server

I am supposed to sync the database with this command sudo graphite-manage syncdb but I get an error because syncdb has been deprecated.

As "syncdb" is not used anymore, I have found online that what I need is "migrate"

I write this command pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo graphite-manage migrate

And I get this return:

  File "/usr/bin/graphite-manage", line 15, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 367, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 359, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 294, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 342, in execute
    self.check()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 374, in check
    include_deployment_checks=include_deployment_checks,
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/commands/migrate.py", line 62, in _run_checks
    issues.extend(super(Command, self)._run_checks(**kwargs))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 361, in _run_checks
    return checks.run_checks(**kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/checks/registry.py", line 81, in run_checks
    new_errors = check(app_configs=app_configs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/checks/urls.py", line 14, in check_url_config
    return check_resolver(resolver)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/core/checks/urls.py", line 24, in check_resolver
    for pattern in resolver.url_patterns:
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/utils/functional.py", line 35, in __get__
    res = instance.__dict__[self.name] = self.func(instance)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/urls/resolvers.py", line 315, in url_patterns
    patterns = getattr(self.urlconf_module, "urlpatterns", self.urlconf_module)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/utils/functional.py", line 35, in __get__
    res = instance.__dict__[self.name] = self.func(instance)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/django/urls/resolvers.py", line 308, in urlconf_module
    return import_module(self.urlconf_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/graphite/urls.py", line 29, in <module>
    urlpatterns = patterns('',
NameError: name 'patterns' is not defined

For some reason I get the error in the last line, and I don't understand what's wrong.

Answer 1

This looks like the same thing as issue #1816 from graphite-web—your Django version is too new.

My suggestion would be to uninstall the package from apt and follow the official instructions to install with Pip:

In order to install Graphite-Web and Carbon, you must first install some development headers. In Debian-based distributions, this will require apt-get install python-dev libcairo2-dev libffi-dev build-essential, and in Red Hat-based distributions you will run yum install python-devel cairo-devel libffi-devel.

Installing in the Default Location To install Graphite in the default location, /opt/graphite/, simply execute as root:

export PYTHONPATH="/opt/graphite/lib/:/opt/graphite/webapp/" 
pip install --no-binary=:all: https://github.com/graphite-project/whisper/tarball/master 
pip install --no-binary=:all: https://github.com/graphite-project/carbon/tarball/master
pip install --no-binary=:all: https://github.com/graphite-project/graphite-web/tarball/master

If there are still issues after doing this, you'll be able to manually ask for an older version of Django with Pip as described in the issue I linked:

pip uninstall Django
pip install "Django>=1.9,<1.9.99