Trouble Connecting Django Application to PostgreSQL Database Running in Docker Container

I’m currently working on a Django project where I’m using a virtual environment (venv) to run Django locally on my machine (Windows). Additionally, I have a PostgreSQL database running in a Docker container.

I’m encountering issues trying to establish a connection between my Django application and the PostgreSQL database. Whenever I attempt to run python manage.py makemigrations, I get the following error:

RuntimeWarning: Got an error checking a consistent migration history performed for database connection 'default': connection to server at "host.docker.internal" (141.31.78.207), port 5432 failed: Connection timed out (0x0000274C/10060)
        Is the server running on that host and accepting TCP/IP connections?

  warnings.warn(
No changes detected

Here are the relevant portions of my Django settings.py:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'SilverSurfer',
        'USER': 'postgres',
        'PASSWORD': "root",
        'HOST': "host.docker.internal",
        'PORT': '5432',
    }
}

And here’s my Docker Compose file:

version: "3.9"

services:
  db:
    image: postgres:15.0
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: SilverSurfer
      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: root
    ports:
      - "5432:5432"
    volumes:
      - ./db.sql:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/db.sql

It’s worth noting that my Docker container for the database is running:

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE           COMMAND                  CREATED          STATUS          
528ad4e3232f   postgres:15.0   "docker-entrypoint.s…"   37 minutes ago   Up 37 minutes   
PORTS                    NAMES
0.0.0.0:5432->5432/tcp   02_db-db-1

I’ve tried connecting to the PostgreSQL database using psql, but I receive a similar timeout error.

Could someone please assist me in troubleshooting this issue? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

I experimented also with alternative hostnames such as "localhost", "0.0.0.0", and even my local IP address obtained from ipconfig ("172.16.98.1"). I encountered similar timeout errors.

Originally, I planned to have two separate Docker containers – one for Django and another for PostgreSQL. However, I encountered difficulties in establishing communication between the Django container and the PostgreSQL container. This setup also resulted in connection issues, preventing Django from connecting to the PostgreSQL database in the other Docker container.
With two Docker containers I also tried to create a network and specify the container name of the Postgre container in the Django DB settings, but that didn’t work either.

Full trace from error message trying with localhost and 127.0.0.1:

(myenv) PS C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_Backend> python manage.py makemigrations
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_Backendmanage.py", line 22, in <module>
    main()
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_Backendmanage.py", line 18, in main
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangocoremanagement__init__.py", line 442, in execute_from_command_line       
    utility.execute()
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangocoremanagement__init__.py", line 436, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangocoremanagementbase.py", line 412, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangocoremanagementbase.py", line 458, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangocoremanagementbase.py", line 106, in wrapper
    res = handle_func(*args, **kwargs)
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangocoremanagementcommandsmakemigrations.py", line 156, in handle
    loader.check_consistent_history(connection)
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangodbmigrationsloader.py", line 313, in check_consistent_history
    applied = recorder.applied_migrations()
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangodbmigrationsrecorder.py", line 81, in applied_migrations
    if self.has_table():
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangodbmigrationsrecorder.py", line 57, in has_table
    with self.connection.cursor() as cursor:
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangoutilsasyncio.py", line 26, in inner
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangodbbackendsbasebase.py", line 330, in cursor
    return self._cursor()
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangodbbackendsbasebase.py", line 306, in _cursor
    self.ensure_connection()
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangoutilsasyncio.py", line 26, in inner
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangodbbackendsbasebase.py", line 289, in ensure_connection
    self.connect()
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangoutilsasyncio.py", line 26, in inner
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangodbbackendsbasebase.py", line 270, in connect
    self.connection = self.get_new_connection(conn_params)
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangoutilsasyncio.py", line 26, in inner
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagesdjangodbbackendspostgresqlbase.py", line 275, in get_new_connection
    connection = self.Database.connect(**conn_params)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:UsersAbdulSoftware_ProjekteSilverSurfer4_BackendmyenvLibsite-packagespsycopg2__init__.py", line 122, in connect
    conn = _connect(dsn, connection_factory=connection_factory, **kwasync)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xfc in position 91: invalid start byte