Django static files using whitenoise on heroku

Question

I am trying to use Heroku's documentation to serve static files on my local machine and in production. However, whenever I run my app with debug=True everything works as expected; static files are retrieved and the app displays as intended. However, whenever I change debug=False I get a Server Error (500). As far as I can tell it all boils down to my STATICFILE_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'. When I comment that out, my app will run with debug=False, but with no styling due to the lack of static files. I have gone through the whitenoise documentation, and heroku's but I can't figure out what is going on, apart of from STATICFILE_STORAGE being the issue. Is whitenoise not meant for production? Do I have to use a CDN in production? It's a small time app, so I was hoping not to have to use CDN, but will if necessary.

settings.py (I only included the parts of settings.py that I thought were relevant. If you need the whole thing, let me know.)

import os


# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))))
PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))))

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = False

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django_hosts.middleware.HostsRequestMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware',
    .......

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/howto/static-files/
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Extra places for collectstatic to find static files.
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'static'),
)

# Simplified static file serving.
# https://warehouse.python.org/project/whitenoise/

STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'

wsgi.py

import os

from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
from whitenoise.django import DjangoWhiteNoise

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "MySite.settings")

application = get_wsgi_application()
application = DjangoWhiteNoise(application)

logs

2017-04-14T08:40:06.800390+00:00 heroku[router]: at=info method=GET path="/" host=wgsite.herokuapp.com request_id=6bf564f7-efba-42fb-b8b1-970a02a5283a fwd="5.51.58.217" dyno=web.1 connect=0ms service=11ms status=302 bytes=223 protocol=https
2017-04-14T08:40:06.997956+00:00 heroku[router]: at=info method=GET path="/login" host=wgsite.herokuapp.com request_id=4ce4486e-7e06-4fcd-a562-88ec3ffd8fa9 fwd="5.51.58.217" dyno=web.1 connect=0ms service=6ms status=302 bytes=243 protocol=https

thanks in advance for your help!

UPDATE:

So it turns out I had to run heroku config:unset DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC to get heroku to auto collectstatic. Now its throwing me these errors:

remote:  !     Error while running '$ python manage.py collectstatic --noinput'.
remote:        See traceback above for details.

Which is odd since I can run python manage.py collectstatic locally with success...

UPDATE #2

I ran collectstatic locally and a directory called "staticfiles" was created with all of my static files organized by app inside. I pushed to heroku and now my site opens with all static files functioning with debug=False. I still can't get heroku to collect static automatically without erroring out.

Answer 1

So it turns out that my settings directory had a lot to do with the issues. In my settings directory, I have a local and a production settings file. As a result, I had to adjust my BASE_DIR and my PROJECT_ROOT dir. I added PROJECT_ROOT2 dir in order to get heroku to find my local static files. After that, I had to actually place a blank css file into the required settings/static directory, because git can't read empty directories. After all of that, I was finally able to get collectstatic to run locally and on heroku. Here is my updated settings.py:

import os


# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))))
PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))))
PROJECT_ROOT2 = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))

# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/howto/deployment/checklist/

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = False

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['www.site.co', 'site', 'wgsite.herokuapp.com']

# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # Django Apps
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # Third Party Apps
    'crispy_forms',
    'django.contrib.humanize',
    'django_hosts',
    # My Apps
    'argent',
    'home',
    'accounts',

]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django_hosts.middleware.HostsRequestMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
    'MySite.middleware.LoginRequiredMiddleware',
    'django_hosts.middleware.HostsResponseMiddleware',
]

LOGIN_URL = '/login'

LOGIN_EXEMPT_URLS = [
    '/logout',
    '/register',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'MySite.urls'
ROOT_HOSTCONF = 'MySite.hosts'
DEFAULT_HOST = 'www'
DEFAULT_REDIRECT_URL = 'http://www.site.co'


TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')]
        ,
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'MySite.wsgi.application'

# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
    }
}

# Password validation
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators

AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator',
    },
]

# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'CET'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True

CRISPY_TEMPLATE_PACK = 'bootstrap3'


# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/howto/static-files/
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Extra places for collectstatic to find static files.
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT2, 'static'),
)

# Simplified static file serving.
# https://warehouse.python.org/project/whitenoise/

STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'