Django: 'current_tags' is not a valid tag library

Possibilities are many:

  1. You haven't reset your dev server.
  2. You have dependency loop in templatetag file.
  3. You misspelled something (directory, folder, template name in 'load', etc.).
  4. You forgot about adding the app to INSTALLED_APPS.

I had this problem and fixed it by adding a blank __init__.py file in my appname/templatetags/ directory.


Restart the server has solved the issue for me. They must have mentioned it in the documentation.


I would suggest the following:

  1. (Most likely) You haven't installed one of the dependencies of your tag library. Check the imports inside the current_tags.py module.

  2. Make sure the application that includes the tag library is registered in settings.py under INSTALLED_APPS.

  3. Make sure that you can successfully import the tag library.

    python manage.py shell
    >>> from app.templatetags import current_tags
    

    This boils down what the following link recommends, which is that the error itself tends to mislead you about where it's looking for a template from. It silently ignores errors on import, which means current_tags.py itself might have a syntax error or another reason why it raises ImportError.

If everything else fails, check this link: http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2007/dec/04/magic-tags/