Trouble deploying django app to AWS lambda using zappa - python-3.x

Question

I am trying to deploy my django app to AWS Lambda. I have viewed many tutorials on how to do so. However, whenever I run zappa deploy, I get the following error at the end:
Deploying API Gateway.. Error: Warning! Status check on the deployed lambda failed. A GET request to '/' yielded a 502 response code.
Running zappa tail gives me the following:
[1604786373569] [DEBUG] 2020-11-07T21:59:33.569Z 1a7e8cd4-1bf2-4af4-b11b-2baa6c6691dc Read environment variables from: /var/task/my_cool_project/.env
[1604786373570] [DEBUG] 2020-11-07T21:59:33.569Z 1a7e8cd4-1bf2-4af4-b11b-2baa6c6691dc get 'SECRET_KEY' casted as 'None' with default '<NoValue>'
[1604786373582] [DEBUG] 2020-11-07T21:59:33.582Z 1a7e8cd4-1bf2-4af4-b11b-2baa6c6691dc get 'DB_ENGINE' casted as 'None' with default '<NoValue>'
[1604786373582] [DEBUG] 2020-11-07T21:59:33.582Z 1a7e8cd4-1bf2-4af4-b11b-2baa6c6691dc get 'DB_NAME' casted as 'None' with default '<NoValue>'
[1604786373582] [DEBUG] 2020-11-07T21:59:33.582Z 1a7e8cd4-1bf2-4af4-b11b-2baa6c6691dc get 'DB_USER' casted as 'None' with default '<NoValue>'
[1604786373582] [DEBUG] 2020-11-07T21:59:33.582Z 1a7e8cd4-1bf2-4af4-b11b-2baa6c6691dc get 'DB_PASSWORD' casted as 'None' with default '<NoValue>'
[1604786373582] [DEBUG] 2020-11-07T21:59:33.582Z 1a7e8cd4-1bf2-4af4-b11b-2baa6c6691dc get 'DB_HOST' casted as 'None' with default '<NoValue>'
[1604786373582] [DEBUG] 2020-11-07T21:59:33.582Z 1a7e8cd4-1bf2-4af4-b11b-2baa6c6691dc get 'DB_PORT' casted as 'None' with default '<NoValue>'
[1604786374005] [ERROR] NameError: name '_mysql' is not defined
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/var/task/handler.py", line 609, in lambda_handler
return LambdaHandler.lambda_handler(event, context)
File "/var/task/handler.py", line 240, in lambda_handler
handler = cls()
File "/var/task/handler.py", line 146, in __init__
wsgi_app_function = get_django_wsgi(self.settings.DJANGO_SETTINGS)
File "/var/task/zappa/ext/django_zappa.py", line 20, in get_django_wsgi
return get_wsgi_application()
File "/var/task/django/core/wsgi.py", line 12, in get_wsgi_application
django.setup(set_prefix=False)
File "/var/task/django/__init__.py", line 24, in setup
apps.populate(settings.INSTALLED_APPS)
File "/var/task/django/apps/registry.py", line 114, in populate
app_config.import_models()
File "/var/task/django/apps/config.py", line 211, in import_models
self.models_module = import_module(models_module_name)
File "/var/lang/lib/python3.8/importlib/__init__.py", line 127, in import_module
return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1014, in _gcd_import
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 991, in _find_and_load
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 975, in _find_and_load_unlocked
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 671, in _load_unlocked
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 783, in exec_module
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 219, in _call_with_frames_removed
File "/var/task/django/contrib/auth/models.py", line 2, in <module>
from django.contrib.auth.base_user import AbstractBaseUser, BaseUserManager
File "/var/task/django/contrib/auth/base_user.py", line 48, in <module>
class AbstractBaseUser(models.Model):
File "/var/task/django/db/models/base.py", line 122, in __new__
new_class.add_to_class('_meta', Options(meta, app_label))
File "/var/task/django/db/models/base.py", line 326, in add_to_class
value.contribute_to_class(cls, name)
File "/var/task/django/db/models/options.py", line 206, in contribute_to_class
self.db_table = truncate_name(self.db_table, connection.ops.max_name_length())
File "/var/task/django/db/__init__.py", line 28, in __getattr__
return getattr(connections[DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS], item)
File "/var/task/django/db/utils.py", line 214, in __getitem__
backend = load_backend(db['ENGINE'])
File "/var/task/django/db/utils.py", line 111, in load_backend
return import_module('%s.base' % backend_name)
File "/var/lang/lib/python3.8/importlib/__init__.py", line 127, in import_module
return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
File "/var/task/django/db/backends/mysql/base.py", line 15, in <module>
import MySQLdb as Database
File "/var/task/MySQLdb/__init__.py", line 24, in <module>
version_info, _mysql.version_info, _mysql.__file__
What am I doing wrong? I have settings.py with all my env variables defined. It seems that those variables aren't being read properly? Thanks too all of those in advance.

Answer 1

Not a true fix but a work around. I was using AWS RDS MySQL, and just changed everything over to AWS RDS PostgreSQL. Have had no issues. This has me to believe that the error has something to do with connecting to MySQL.