Error loading MySQLdb module.

[pythonsmurf]

Hi all,

Apologies, i am new to python and django, this might be a simple question.

I *had* a perfectly working environment using Django and MySQL 8. The Python components were installed via pip3.

From pip3 freeze:
Django==2.1.3
django-filter==2.0.0
django-formtools==2.1
django-widget-tweaks==1.4.2
mysqlclient==1.3.13

My imac recently updated to Mojave, and the whole thing fell apart and issues connecting to MySQL came up.

this is the output from python3 manage.py makemigrations

[i]

Error:
Unhandled exception in thread started by <function check_errors.<locals>.wrapper at 0x10e4a92f0>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/mysql/base.py", line 15, in <module>
    import MySQLdb as Database
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/site-packages/MySQLdb/__init__.py", line 18, in <module>
    import _mysql
ImportError: dlopen(/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/site-packages/_mysql.cpython-36m-darwin.so, 2): Library not loaded: @rpath/libmysqlclient.21.dylib
  Referenced from: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/site-packages/_mysql.cpython-36m-darwin.so
  Reason: image not found
  
  ....

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading MySQLdb module.
Did you install mysqlclient?[/i]

So, i have now tried:
Uninstalling and Reinstalling MySQL
Uninstalling and Reinstalling mysqlclient (via pip)
Uninstalling and Reinstalling Django and components (via pip)

i read somewhere that @rpath points to /usr/lib, i have no symbolic link in /usr/lib pointing to /usr/local/mysql/lib where libmysqlclient.21.dylib resides? Maybe thats something to do with it?

No matter what I do, I cant get my environment back up and running again. all the things suggested on google that I have found havent worked.

Has anyone come across this?

Many thanks!