Recaptcha settings error recurring during CI builds only

[diveonebot]

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: ('Setting RECAPTCHA_PRIVATE_KEY is not of type', <class 'str'>)

• Variable value is set to an arbitrary string in the settings file.
• Variable value is set to an arbitrary string in CI environment and app environment.
• Error occurs only in CI build process.
• Error only started occurring this week. I've had successful builds until today.
• I'm using gitlab FWI

I'm at a loss for why the module is throwing this error. Any ideas?

[alanverresen]

That sounds like an unpleasant problem; perhaps the solution from this StackOverflow thread solves your problem. Please let us know if that solves the problem, and it would also be helpful if you provided the following, regardless of the outcome:

• What versions of Python, Django, and python-recaptcha are used?
• What are the exact lines of code that you use to set RECAPTCHA_PUBLIC_KEY and RECAPTCHA_PRIVATE_KEY?
• If the values of RECAPTCHA_PUBLIC_KEY and RECAPTCHA_PRIVATE_KEY are not str instances, then what are they?

Based on your information, we might uncover a potential issue, so please let us know!

[diveonebot]

Thanks for your reply and apologies for the weekend delay :)

I'm using Django 4.0.2, Python 3.11 and the latest Recaptcha release.

I use the exact settings provided in the documentation:

# Django Recaptcha
RECAPTCHA_PUBLIC_KEY = os.getenv('RECAPTCHA_V2_CLIENT_KEY', 'empty')
RECAPTCHA_PRIVATE_KEY = os.getenv('RECAPTCHA_V2_SERVER_KEY', 'empty')

# CICD yaml variables
RECAPTCHA_PRIVATE_KEY: 'nothing'
RECAPTCHA_PUBLIC_KEY: 'nothing'

But again, this issue is only occurring in my CICD pipeline. The pipeline has been green with the exact same settings for the past few weeks. Then last week when this error started appearing despite no modifications to settings. App is currently deployed live as of last Friday with the same settings. So it seems an issue with the Gitlab pipeline in particular.

I"m perplexed, since the same configuration has worked for weeks. As of today, only the pipeline fails on this. Any possible ideas?

[diveonebot]

Quick update: its green again, with the change to the above settings using 'empty'. I think I figured out my error, it seems it doesn't deal with None when os.getenv() doesn't have a default arg. Still not very clear on exactly why it started failing in the first place but I must have screwed something up along the way, I'll have to figure out the details.

Another great example of github discussions being a great tool :) Thanks again for your help.