Django TemplateDoesNotExist?

First solution:

These settings

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, 'templates'),
)

mean that Django will look at the templates from templates/ directory under your project.

Assuming your Django project is located at /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/ then with your settings django will look for the templates under /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/

So in that case we want to move our templates to be structured like this:

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/template1.html
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/template2.html
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/templates/template3.html

Second solution:

If that still doesn't work and assuming that you have the apps configured in settings.py like this:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'appname1',
    'appname2',
    'appname3',
)

By default Django will load the templates under templates/ directory under every installed apps. So with your directory structure, we want to move our templates to be like this:

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/appname1/templates/template1.html
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/appname2/templates/template2.html
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/projectname/appname3/templates/template3.html

SETTINGS_PATH may not be defined by default. In which case, you will want to define it (in settings.py):

import os
SETTINGS_PATH = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))

Find this tuple:

    import os
    SETTINGS_PATH = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))

    TEMPLATES = [
        {
            'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
            'DIRS': [],
            'APP_DIRS': True,
            'OPTIONS': {
                'context_processors': [
                    'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                    'django.template.context_processors.request',
                    'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                    'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
                ],
            },
        },
    ]

You need to add to 'DIRS' the string

"os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, 'templates')"

So altogether you need:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(SETTINGS_PATH, 'templates')],
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

If you encounter this problem when you add an app from scratch. It is probably because that you miss some settings. Three steps is needed when adding an app.

1、Create the directory and template file.

Suppose you have a project named mysite and you want to add an app named your_app_name. Put your template file under mysite/your_app_name/templates/your_app_name as following.

├── mysite
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── your_app_name
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── apps.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── templates
│   │   └── your_app_name
│   │       └── my_index.html
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── views.py

2、Add your app to INSTALLED_APPS.

Modify settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'your_app_name',
    ...
]

3、Add your app directory to DIRS in TEMPLATES.

Modify settings.py.

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        ...
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates'),
                 os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'your_app_name', 'templates', 'your_app_name'),
                ...
                ]
    }
]