Force login not working with fixtures (Django TestCase)

Question

I'm populating my test db via a fixture, and everything loads fine. However, I'm unable to get either login or force_login to work. User is also in the fixture.

When I try to test the first view, it redirects to the login page.

class TestUnauthUser(TestCase):

    fixtures = ['project.json']

    @classmethod
    def setUpTestData(cls):
        cls.client = Client()
        # Get User and Login
        cls.unauth_user = User.objects.get(username='unauth_user')
        print(cls.unauth_user.pk)
        #cls.login = cls.client.login(username=cls.unauth_user.username, password=cls.unauth_user.password)
        cls.client.force_login(cls.unauth_user)

        # Get Project
        cls.project = Project.objects.get(slug='test-project')
        cls.slug_dict = {'slug': cls.project.slug}

        # Get Task
        cls.task = Task.objects.get(slug='test-task')

    def test_login(self):
        self.assertTrue(self.unauth_user.login)

    def test_project_view(self):
        # Project Main
        response = self.client.get(reverse('customerportal:project', kwargs=self.slug_dict))
        self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 403)

I'm able to verify that I have the correct user object with: print(cls.unauth_user.pk) . So the User exists and is being obtained. But, it's still not logging-in successfully.

Answer 1

I found the problem. force_login() must be run prior to every test. So doing the following solves the issue:

def setUp(self):
    self.client.force_login(self.unauth_user)

However, this seems to run contrary to the purpose of setUpTestData . It was my understanding that anything set under setUpTestData is supposed to last for the duration of the class. So I'm unsure as to why force_login must be run repeatedly even when set from there. If anyone could provide further context that would be highly appreciated.