Question

I am relatively new to django. I have defined my db schema and validated it with no errors (manage.py validate reports 0 errors found).

Yet when I run ./manage.py syncdb

I get the following stack trace:

Creating table demo_foobar_one
Creating table demo_foobar_two
<snip>...</snip>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 11, in <module>
    execute_manager(settings)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 438, in execute_manager
    utility.execute()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 379, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 191, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 218, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 347, in handle
    return self.handle_noargs(**options)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/management/commands/syncdb.py", line 103, in handle_noargs
    emit_post_sync_signal(created_models, verbosity, interactive, db)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/management/sql.py", line 185, in emit_post_sync_signal
    interactive=interactive, db=db)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/dispatch/dispatcher.py", line 162, in send
    response = receiver(signal=self, sender=sender, **named)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/contrib/auth/management/__init__.py", line 28, in create_permissions
    defaults={'name': name, 'content_type': ctype})
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/manager.py", line 135, in get_or_create
    return self.get_query_set().get_or_create(**kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 373, in get_or_create
    obj.save(force_insert=True, using=self.db)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/base.py", line 435, in save
    self.save_base(using=using, force_insert=force_insert, force_update=force_update)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/base.py", line 528, in save_base
    result = manager._insert(values, return_id=update_pk, using=using)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/manager.py", line 195, in _insert
    return insert_query(self.model, values, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 1479, in insert_query
    return query.get_compiler(using=using).execute_sql(return_id)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/sql/compiler.py", line 783, in execute_sql
    cursor = super(SQLInsertCompiler, self).execute_sql(None)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/sql/compiler.py", line 727, in execute_sql
    cursor.execute(sql, params)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/backends/util.py", line 15, in execute
    return self.cursor.execute(sql, params)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/backends/mysql/base.py", line 86, in execute
    return self.cursor.execute(query, args)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/MySQL_python-1.2.3-py2.6-linux-i686.egg/MySQLdb/cursors.py", line 176, in execute
    if not self._defer_warnings: self._warning_check()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/MySQL_python-1.2.3-py2.6-linux-i686.egg/MySQLdb/cursors.py", line 92, in _warning_check
    warn(w[-1], self.Warning, 3)
_mysql_exceptions.Warning: Data truncated for column 'name' at row 1

I have checked (and double checked) my table schema. All name field are CharField type with maximum length = 64. The backend db I am using is MySQL, so I am sure that indexes can be created for strings of length 64.

What could be causing this error (I suspect it is a misleading error message – even though its coming from the db itself)…

Answer 1

The traceback is happening during the creation of a django.contrib.auth.Permission: some of these get created for your models automatically as part of syncdb.

Permission.name has max_length=50, so you probably have an application and/or model class with a really long name?

Try the following query in manage.py dbshell:

SELECT * FROM auth_permission WHERE LENGTH(name) = 50;

If you cannot change your model name, then you can fix this problem by reducing the length of the generated Permission.name by specifying verbose_name in the model Meta class (see here for more details):

class MyVeryLongModelNameThatIsBreakingMyMigration(models.Model):
    class Meta:
        verbose_name = 'my long model'

Update

There’s an open (as of 2013) Django ticket to fix this:

• #8162 (Increase Permission.name max_length)