I created a managed package and am working on deploying it.  When I deploy the package to my testing environment, I keep getting an error while trying to access a customsetting i created.  The error is:  System.LimitException: aplusf:DML currently not allowed.  

The problem is that my applicaiton is NOT generated the managed list, even though I put code in to add the managed list if its not found.  I'm including the code below that I put in the application.  If I MANUALLY create the customsetting managed list name then my app works fine.  Any thoughts as to why this isn't working in test?

try{
            objSettings = new aplusf__Settings__c();
            objSettings = aplusf__Settings__c.getValues(strSetting);
           
            If(objSettings ==null){
                //Need to create new settings
                upsert new aplusf__Settings__c(
                    Name=strSetting,
                    aplusf__EnableApplication__c=false,
                    aplusf__EnableDebugging__c=false,
                    aplusf__EnableRecordTypes__c=false,
                    aplusf__EnableHelpMessage__c=false
                    );
                objSettings = aplusf__Settings__c.getValues(strSetting);
            }
            EnableApplication=objSettings.aplusf__EnableApplication__c;
            EnableDebugging=objSettings.aplusf__EnableDebugging__c;
            EnableRecordTypes=objSettings.aplusf__EnableRecordTypes__c;
            EnableHelpMessage=objSettings.aplusf__EnableHelpMessage__c;
        } Catch(Exception ex){
            String strM = 'An error occurred trying to save settings: ' + ex.getMessage();
            objSettings.addError(strM);
        } finally {return;}
    }