Django admin.py Unknown command: 'collectstatic'

If you change name or destanation of your settings.py file, you need to invoke your manage.py with key --settings.

I had a similar error message, but despite my suspicions, it had nothing to do with the Django update. If you have an error in settings (I had an empty SECRET_KEY value), then "django" will be the only app that gets loaded. I found the root of the problem by running python manage.py shell and that quickly told me what's wrong with the settings.

For those coming here from google, I resolved it through adding

'django.contrib.staticfiles',

to INSTALLED_APPS