serializer not being called AttributeError: ‘str’ object has no attribute ‘_meta’

I modified the Auth User by using AbstractUser Class. Registered it in settings. Everything else is working I can create an instance using the User Model BUT

The Problem comes during the serialization. My serializer doesn’t throw any error, but any time I try and use the serializer.data I get AttributeError: ‘str’ object has no attribute ‘_meta’.

User Model

class User(AbstractUser):
# Add additional fields here
email = models.EmailField(max_length=254, unique=True)
name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
username = models.CharField(max_length=100)
password = models.CharField(max_length=100)
is_staff = models.BooleanField(default=False)
is_active = models.BooleanField(default=False)
date_joined = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
last_login = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)
first_name=None
last_name=None

USERNAME_FIELD = 'email'
REQUIRED_FIELDS = ['name', 'username', 'password']
objects =  CustomUserManager()

def __str__(self):
    return self.email

# Ensure that the password is hashed before saving it to the database
def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
    self.password = make_password(self.password)
    super(User, self).save(*args, **kwargs)

Custom Manager

from django.contrib.auth.base_user import BaseUserManager
from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _

class CustomUserManager(BaseUserManager):


def create_user(self, email, password, **extra_fields):
    """
    Create and save a User with the given email and password.
    """
    if not email:
        raise ValueError(_('The Email must be set'))
        
    email = self.normalize_email(email)
    user = self.model(email=email, **extra_fields)
    user.set_password(password)
    user.save()
    return user

def create_superuser(self, email, password, **extra_fields):
    """
    Create and save a SuperUser with the given email and password.
    """
    extra_fields.setdefault('is_staff', True)
    extra_fields.setdefault('is_superuser', True)
    extra_fields.setdefault('is_active', True)

    if extra_fields.get('is_staff') is not True:
        raise ValueError(_('Superuser must have is_staff=True.'))
    if extra_fields.get('is_superuser') is not True:
        raise ValueError(_('Superuser must have is_superuser=True.'))
    return self.create_user(email, password, **extra_fields)

User Serializer

from rest_framework import serializers
from django.conf import settings
User = settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL

class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    print("UserSerializer")
    class Meta:
        model = User
        # fields = (['id', 'username', 'email', 'name'])
        fields = '__all__'

View

@api_view(['POST'])
def createUser(request):
    data = request.data
    serializer = UserSerializer(data,many=False)
    if serializer.is_valid():
         print(type(serializer.data))
         serializer.save()
         return Response(serializer.data)

    return Response(serializer.errors, status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)

I’ve stuck with the code for the last 7-8 hours. Even tried specifying the fields but I haven’t been able to figure out why this is happening.

Answer

You should work with the get_user_model() function ^[Django-doc] to obtain a reference to the user model, the AUTH_USER_MODEL setting ^[Django-doc] is only a string to the name of that model:

from rest_framework import serializers
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model


class UserSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):

    class Meta:
        model = get_user_model()
        fields = '__all__'