Django: "Too many values to unpack" when calling user.objects.get()

Question

In Django 1.6, I've defined a custom user model, but for some reason now when I create a superuser and try to get it or access the Django admin as that superuser, I get this ValueError: Too many values to unpack. I have perused the many similar questions on SO about this error and haven't found anything that fits my particular issue. I cannot figure out what would be wrong.

In my custom create_user and create_superuser methods in the custom manager, I do pass an extra field, but that field does not actually make it into the model, so I can't see why that would be causing a problem.

Additionally, when trying to access the admin, I get a slightly different error: AttributeError: 'UserObject' has no attribute 'has_module_perms'.

Full traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "C:\Users\JJ\Coding\virtualenvs\TCR5venv\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\manager.py", line 151, in get
    return self.get_queryset().get(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\JJ\Coding\virtualenvs\TCR5venv\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\query.py", line 298, in get
    clone = self.filter(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\JJ\Coding\virtualenvs\TCR5venv\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\query.py", line 590, in filter
    return self._filter_or_exclude(False, *args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\JJ\Coding\virtualenvs\TCR5venv\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\query.py", line 608, in _filter_or_exclude
    clone.query.add_q(Q(*args, **kwargs))
  File "C:\Users\JJ\Coding\virtualenvs\TCR5venv\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\sql\query.py", line 1198, in add_q
    clause = self._add_q(where_part, used_aliases)
  File "C:\Users\JJ\Coding\virtualenvs\TCR5venv\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\sql\query.py", line 1232, in _add_q
    current_negated=current_negated)
  File "C:\Users\JJ\Coding\virtualenvs\TCR5venv\lib\site-packages\django\db\models\sql\query.py", line 1035, in build_filter
    arg, value = filter_expr
ValueError: too many values to unpack

Customer user model:

class UserObject(AbstractBaseUser):

    email = models.EmailField(max_length=254, unique=True, db_index=True)

    USERNAME_FIELD = 'email'
    # REQUIRED_FIELDS = ['student_or_business',]

    # Tells us whether the UserObject is a business or student
    @property
    def type(self):
        if hasattr(self, 'Student'.lower()):
            return 'S'
        elif hasattr(self, 'BusinessHandler'.lower()):
            return 'B'
        else:
            raise TypeError, "UserObject has neither Student nor BusinessHandler connected."

    # Gets us the actual UserObject's accompanying object, whether Student or Business
    @property
    def get_profile_object(self):
        if self.type == 'S':
            return getattr(self, 'Student'.lower())
        elif self.type == 'B':
            return getattr(self, 'BusinessHandler'.lower()) # to take advantage of refactoring

    @property
    def is_student(self):
        return self.type == 'S'

    @property
    def is_business(self):
        return self.type == 'B'

    def relevant_item(self, input_tuple):
        '''
        Takes in a tuple of options for return in form (Student, Business[, other]).
        Returns the appropriate option depending
        '''
        if not 2 <= len(input_tuple) <= 3:
            raise TypeError, "relevant_item() requires a tuple of 2 or 3."
        else:
            if self.type == 'S':
                return input_tuple[0]
            elif self.type == 'B':
                return input_tuple[1]
            else:
                return input_tuple[2] if len(input_tuple) == 3 else None


    signup_date = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)

    # admin stuff
    is_active = models.BooleanField(default=True)
    is_admin = models.BooleanField(default=False)
    is_staff = models.BooleanField(default=False)

    # Settings
    verified = models.BooleanField(default=False)
    accepted_TOS = models.DateField(default=datetime.datetime.today())
         # Date so can find who need to update when change TOS

    # Temporary hashes/strings
    verification_id = models.CharField(unique=True, default=lambda: random_string(20), max_length=20)
    reset_password_code = models.CharField(blank=True, default=lambda: random_string(20), max_length=20)

    def get_new_reset_password_code(self):
        self.reset_password_code = random_string(20)
        self.save()
        return self.reset_password_code

    def new_verification_id(self):
        self.verification_id = random_string(20)
        try:
            self.save()
        except IntegrityError:
            self.new_verification_id()

    objects = UserObjectManager()

Custom user manager:

class UserObjectManager(BaseUserManager):

    @staticmethod
    def create_accompanying_model(user, student_or_business):
        '''
        This creates the appropriate accompanying Student or BusinessHandler model when a
        new UserObject is created.
        '''

        if student_or_business == 'S':
            s = models.get_model('student', 'Student')
            new_item = s.objects.create(user_object=user, UserObject_creation=True)
            new_item.save()

        elif student_or_business == 'B':
            b = models.get_model('business', 'BusinessHandler')
            new_item = b.objects.create(user_object=user, UserObject_creation=True)
            new_item.save()

        else:
            msg = 'Must be Student or BusinessHandler.'
            raise ValueError(msg)

    def create_user(self, email, password, student_or_business):

        # normalize student_or_business
        if student_or_business.lower() in ('s', 'student'):
            student_or_business = 'S'
        elif student_or_business.lower() in ('b', 'business', 'BusinessHandler'.lower()):
            student_or_business = 'B'

        # Check if an email was provided
        if not email:
            msg = 'Users must have an email address.'
            raise ValueError(msg)

        # If a student, check if a '.edu' email address was provided
        if email and student_or_business == 'S':
            if not email.endswith('.edu'):
                msg = 'Students must sign up with a .edu email address.'
                raise ValueError(msg)

        user = self.model(
            email=UserObjectManager.normalize_email(email),

            # Removed the below because calculating that differently
            # student_or_business = student_or_business,

        )

        user.set_password(password)
        user.save(using=self._db)

        self.create_accompanying_model(user, student_or_business)

        return user

    def create_superuser(self, email, password, student_or_business):
        user = self.create_user(email, password, student_or_business)
        user.is_admin = True
        user.is_staff = True
        user.is_superuser = True
        user.save(using=self._db)
        return user

Thanks!

Answer 1

Turns out that the problem here was actually very unrelated to the errors thrown.

I realized I was actually calling

UserObject.objects.get('user@email.com')

instead of

UserObject.objects.get(email='user@email.com')

which is why the errors were being thrown. If you look into the Django source code, you'll find that when building a filter for a QuerySet, Django unpacks the field name and data for use in the filter, but since I had provided no field name to objects.get(...), there was an error thrown when unpacking.

Used the Werkzeug live browser debugger for this; I highly recommend it.

Answer 2

You have to implement has_module_perms method as stated in the Django custom user documentation:

If you want your custom User model to also work with Admin, your User model must define some additional attributes and methods.

Answer 3

May not be useful for this specific problem, But I got the same error for using a model to populate the form object... (with different error messages saying formObject does not have 'get' attribute)

should use form=formObject(instance=modelInstance) instead of using form=formObject(data=modelInstance)