Django admin login returns Forbidden 403 CSRF verification failed. Request aborted
<p>Pretty new to Django. Working through a second project following the Polls tutorial on Django website. Previous effort went well, albeit simple. This time around encountering problems accessing admin login.</p>

<p>I have created a superuser and using those credentials, when I try to login to <code>http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/login/?next=/admin/</code> I get the following error:</p>

<pre><code>Forbidden (403)
CSRF verification failed. Request aborted.
Reason given for failure:
    CSRF cookie not set.
</code></pre>

<p>Looking at <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3678238/why-is-django-admin-login-giving-me-403-csrf-error">this</a> and <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29573163/django-admin-login-suddenly-demanding-csrf-token">this</a>, most answers either detail clearing browser cookies (did that), include <code>'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware'</code> in your middleware (which I do), or creating an exemption or workaround. </p>

<p>1) My question is why the admin portal does not seem to work now, but it did for my previous project and I am following the same steps?</p>

<p>2) Shouldn't the properties for the admin panel be inherited through the project initiation?</p>

<p>3) How would I set the CSRF for admin when <a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/csrf/" rel="nofollow">the documentation</a> appears to state that the CSRF middleware is activated by default?</p>

<p>Thanks for any help.</p>

<p><strong>settings.py</strong></p>

<pre><code>"""
Django settings for aptly project.

Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 1.9.7.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/
"""

import os
import dj_database_url

from .secret_settings import *

# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))

PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
PROJECT_DIR = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT,'../search')


# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/howto/deployment/checklist/

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = True

ALLOWED_HOSTS = []



# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'search',
]

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = [
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.SessionAuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'aptly.urls'

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',
            ],
        },
    },
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'aptly.wsgi.application'


# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2",
        "NAME": "db_name",
        "USER": "me",
        "PASSWORD": "",
        "HOST": "localhost",
        "PORT": "",
    }
}

# Password validation
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators

AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator',
    },
]


# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True


# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/howto/static-files/

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static_root')

# Extra places for collectstatic to find static files.
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(PROJECT_DIR, 'static'),
)

# Simplified static file serving.
# https://warehouse.python.org/project/whitenoise/

STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'

#DATABASES['default'] = dj_database_url.config()
</code></pre>

<p><strong>urls.py</strong></p>

<pre><code>from django.conf.urls import patterns, include, url
from django.contrib import admin
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^$', views.index, name='index'),
    url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
]
</code></pre>

<p><strong>Directory</strong></p>

<pre><code>project
-aptly
--settings.py
--urls.py
--wsgi.py
-search
--templates
---index.html
--models.py
--urls.py
--views.py
manage.py
</code></pre>

<p>I have no clue why this is the answer, but I went in and updated my Django to the current release. For whatever reason this solved the problem...</p>

<pre><code>pip install --upgrade django==1.10.2
</code></pre>

python django