Why can't I access my template view when trying to register a user with Django?

Question

I'm trying to implement a login functionality to a small Django project but when I go to the page with signup/signin form I get the 404 error. I am using Django default user model and auth forms.

here are the views:

def signup(request):
    if request.user.is_authenticated:
        return redirect('/')
    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = UserCreationForm(request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            form.save()
            username = form.cleaned_data.get('username')
            password = form.cleaned_data.get('password1')
            user = authenticate(username=username, password=password)
            login(request, user)
            return redirect('/')
        else:
            return render(request, 'signup.html', {'form': form})
    else:
        form = UserCreationForm()
        return render(request, 'signup.html', {'form': form})


def signin(request):
    if request.user.is_authenticated:
        return render(request, 'homepage.html')
    if request.method == 'POST':
        username = request.POST['username']
        password = request.POST['password']
        user = authenticate(request, username=username, password=password)
        if user is not None:
            login(request, user)
            return redirect('/')
        else:
            form = AuthenticationForm(request.POST)
            return render(request, 'signin.html', {'form': form})
    else:
        form = AuthenticationForm()
        return render(request, 'signin.html', {'form': form})


def log_out(request):
    logout(request)
    return redirect('/')

here are the urls for my views:

urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.PostList.as_view(), name='home'),
    path('<slug:slug>/', views.post_detail, name='post_detail'),
    path('signup/', views.signup, name='register'),
    path('signin/', views.signin, name='signup'),
    path('log_out/', views.log_out, name='log_out'),
]

project urls:

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', include('blog_backend.urls'))
]

full error message:

Page not found (404)
Request Method: GET
Request URL:    http://127.0.0.1:8000/signin/
Raised by:  blog_backend.views.post_detail
No Post matches the given query.

You're seeing this error because you have DEBUG = True in your Django settings file. Change that to False, and Django will display a standard 404 page.

Answer 1

path('<slug:slug>/', views.post_detail, name='post_detail'),
path('signup/', views.signup, name='register'),

You have the URL pattern for post_detail above the signup pattern, so signup/ is being handled by the post_detail view.

The post_detail view tries to find a post with slug='signup' , and gives a 404 error because it doesn't exist.

You can fix the problem by changing the post_detail URL so that it doesn't match signup , for example:

path('blog/<slug:slug>/', views.post_detail, name='post_detail'),
path('signup/', views.signup, name='register'),

Or switch the order of your URL patterns, so that the authentication URLs match first:

path('signup/', views.signup, name='register'),
path('signin/', views.signin, name='signup'),
path('log_out/', views.log_out, name='log_out'),
path('<slug:slug>/', views.post_detail, name='post_detail'),