CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythondjangohttp-status-code-404
Bill Noble
Bill Noble

Reputation: 6734

Django returning 404 for static files

When running a Django project on my local Mac server I get 404 errors when trying to access static files.

My directory structure looks like:

myapp/static

In my settings.py I have tried a variety of combinations of the following:

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static')

PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))

STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'static'),
    '/var/www/myapp/static',
    '/pycharmprojects/myapp/static'
]

STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
)

For every use of a static file I get an error like this in PyCharm:

GET /static/img/pastedsvg%2017.svg HTTP/1.1" 404 101

And an error like this in Firefox:

GET 
http://127.0.0.1:8888/static/img/pastedsvg%2017.svg [HTTP/1.0 404 NOT FOUND 15ms]

I have looked at other answers to this problem in Stackoverflow and tried the suggestions but so far nothing works.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1756

Answers (2)

CaffeineFueled
CaffeineFueled

Reputation: 581

It is difficult to tell what exactly the issue might be, but here are some observations that may help:

  1. STATIC_ROOT is only used for collectstatic. It is where collectstatic will copy your static files when you run it from the command line (python -m django collectstatic).
  2. STATIC_ROOT should not be included in STATICFILES_DIRS as this would confuse collectstatic since its job is to copy static files from your static directories to STATIC_ROOT.
  3. AppDirectoriesFinder is going to look for static files in a directory called static under each of your apps. So, for example, if your project is located in /pycharmprojects/myapp/, AppDirectoriesFinder will look for static files in directories such as /pycharmprojects/myapp/anapp/static and /pycharmprojects/myapp/anotherapp/static (for each application listed in INSTALLED_APPS) and copy them to STATIC_ROOT.
  4. FileSystemFinder is going to use the values in STATICFILES_DIRS to look for static files and copy them to STATIC_ROOT (which is why your value for STATIC_ROOT should not be listed in STATICFILES_DIRS).
  5. When in debug mode, you do not need to collectstatic as Django will look for files in their original location, but when not debug mode (DEBUG = False in your Django config file), you will need to run collectstatic in order for Django to find your static files.

So, from this, I suggest:

  1. Definitely remove os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'static') from your STATICFILES_DIR
  2. Probably remove /pycharmprojects/myapp/static from your STATICFILES_DIR if that points to the same location as os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'static')
  3. If you are not running in debug mode (DEBUG = True in your Django config file), run collectstatic from the command line so that Django can see your static files.

One other question. To which directory is your BASE_DIR pointing? It seems like PROJECT_DIR might be redundant since it's pointing to where BASE_DIR usually points.

Hopefully something in this wall of text will be helpful.

Cheers!

Upvotes: 8

harukaeru
harukaeru

Reputation: 713

I don't know that the following is the correct answer, but I hope it will go well.

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    # os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, "static"),
    os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static"),
]
print("PROJECT_ROOT", PROJECT_ROOT)
print("BASE_DIR", BASE_DIR)

In this case, the value of the variable named PROJECT_ROOT is the same directory that exists setting file. That is why it's not PROJECT_ROOT exactly.

You can execute when running server even if writing python-code in setting file. So you can verify that the code was written in properly once again.

Upvotes: 0

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