Database does not update automatically with MySQL and Python

MySQLdb has autocommit off by default, which may be confusing at first. Your connection exists in its own transaction and you will not be able to see the changes you make from other connections until you commit that transaction.

You can either do conn.commit() after the update statement as others have pointed out, or disable this functionality altogether by setting conn.autocommit(True) right after you create the connection object.

I am not certain, but I am going to guess you are using a INNODB table, and you haven't done a commit. I believe MySQLdb enable transactions automatically.

Call conn.commit() before calling close.

From the FAQ: Starting with 1.2.0, MySQLdb disables autocommit by default