DRF auth_token: "non_field_errors": [ "Unable to log in with provided credentials."

Both JWT packages written for Django gave me issues with poor documentation, so I try DRF-auth_token package. This is a good example I followed, Django Rest Framework Token Authentication. You should in theory be able to go to

localhost:8000/api-token-auth/

urls.py:

from django.conf.urls import url, include
from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from rest_framework.authtoken import views

urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
    url(r'^api/', include('api.urls', namespace='api')),
    url(r'^orders/', include('orders.urls', namespace='orders')),
    url(r'^api-token-auth/', views.obtain_auth_token, name='auth-token'),

]

Getting a token for users is not working so I have rewritten it myself to make it work:

@api_view(['POST'])
def customer_login(request):
    """
    Try to login a customer (food orderer)
    """
    data = request.data

    try:
        username = data['username']
        password = data['password']
    except:
        return Response(status=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST)

    try:
        user = User.objects.get(username=username, password=password)
    except:
        return Response(status=status.HTTP_401_UNAUTHORIZED)

    try:
        user_token = user.auth_token.key
    except:
        user_token = Token.objects.create(user=user)

    data = {'token': user_token}
    return Response(data=data, status=status.HTTP_200_OK)

My version works:

http://localhost:8000/api/login/customer-login/
{"username": "thisguy@example.com", "password": "wombat"}
-->
{
  "token": "292192b101153b7ced74dd52deb6b3df22ef2c74"
}

The DRF auth_token does not work:

http://localhost:8000/api-token-auth/
{"username": "thisguy@example.com", "password": "wombat"}
-->
{
  "non_field_errors": [
    "Unable to log in with provided credentials."
  ]
}

settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',

    # third party:
    'django_extensions',
    'rest_framework',
    'rest_framework.authtoken',



REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework.permissions.IsAuthenticated',
    ),
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
    )
}

It seems set up correctly. Every user in my DB has a token. Each user is is_authenticated and is_active in DB. Super users can get their token:

localhost:8000/api-token-auth/
{"username": "mysuperuser", "password": "superuserpassword"}
-->
{
  "token": "9297ff1f44dbc6caea67bea534f6f7590d2161b0"
}

for some reason, only super user can get a token:

localhost:8000/api-token-auth/
{"username": "regularguy", "password": "password"}
-->
{
  "non_field_errors": [
    "Unable to log in with provided credentials."
  ]
}

Why can't my users log in and get their token?

I went ahead and did this from the drf token auth docs and didn't run into any problems with superusers, staffusers, or normal users.

Also try following the steps of the official docs instead of that SO answer and see if that fixes the problem - it's possible something changed.

Here were the general steps I took:

• install django, drf
• put 'rest_framework' and 'rest_framework.authtoken' in INSTALLED_APPS
• add 'TokenAuthentication' in my rest_framework settings
• run migrate
• create tokens for users (I just did this in urls.py)
• create the url for token
• POST http://localhost:8000/token/ {"username": "...", "password": "..."}

If you have the code public anywhere I'd be glad to take a further look and see what I find.