Session middleware raises exception when unit testing HttpResponseForbidden

[dikbrouwer]

When verifying the GET response of a view in a unit test (TestCase) the following exception is raised in case a HttpResponseForbidden status is returned and the session middleware is enabled:

if response.has_header('Vary'):
TypeError: unbound method has_header() must be called with HttpResponseForbidden instance as first argument (got str instance instead)

[Russell Keith-Magee]

I can't reproduce. Please reopen if you can provide a programmatic test case example that fails.

[gerdemb]

I also encountered this error and discovered the problem was in my code. Instead of returning an HttpResponseForbidden() instance from my middleware, I was returning a HttpResponseForbidden class.

class MyMiddleware:
    def process_request(self, request):
        # Correct
        return HttpResponseForbidden()
        # Incorrect
        return HttpResponseForbidden

Although the error was in my code, Django could have provided a more helpful error message perhaps by catching the incorrect response type sooner.

[dikbrouwer]

I can't reproduce it either, it seems to work fine for me know. Perhaps I was indeed returning a class, basic mistake. Sorry for the irrelevant bug report in that case.