Django localhost gives 500 Error Server Error when DEBUG = False, however ALLOWED_HOSTS=['*']

Question

EDIT: MORE INFORMATION:

I added logging as suggested in the first answer, and got this:

ValueError: The file 'file/name' could not be found with <whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage object

ORIGINAL POST:

I'm running my Django site on locally, and when DEBUG=True it works fine. However, when I set DEBUG=False, it returns a 500 Server Error.

ALLOWED_HOSTS has been set to ['*'], and it still returns a 500 Server Error.

Here's my settings.py:

import os
import dj_database_url

# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
PROJECT_ROOT = 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: keep the secret key used in production secret!
SECRET_KEY = "**************************"

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

# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'my_app.apps.MyAppConfig',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    # Disable Django's own staticfiles handling in favour of WhiteNoise, for
    # greater consistency between gunicorn and `./manage.py runserver`. See:
    # http://whitenoise.evans.io/en/stable/django.html#using-whitenoise-in-development
    'whitenoise.runserver_nostatic',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    '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.auth.middleware.SessionAuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'mysite.urls'

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [],
        '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',
            ],
            'debug': DEBUG,
        },
    },
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'mysite.wsgi.application'


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

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'my_db',
        'USER': 'admin',
        'PASSWORD': '',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}

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 = 'America/Los_Angeles'
USE_I18N = True
USE_L10N = True
USE_TZ = True

# Update database configuration with $DATABASE_URL.
db_from_env = dj_database_url.config(conn_max_age=500)
DATABASES['default'].update(db_from_env)

# Honor the 'X-Forwarded-Proto' header for request.is_secure()
SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO', 'https')

# Allow all host headers
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/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.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage'

Answer 1

The right way to approach this is to enable logging and Django itself will (usually) indicate the problem. The advantage of this approach is that it will be useful for future problems as well. Here's a sample logging setup that will log with DEBUG=false (borrowed from this answer):

# settings.py
LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'formatters': {
        'verbose': {
            'format' : "[%(asctime)s] %(levelname)s [%(name)s:%(lineno)s] %(message)s",
            'datefmt' : "%d/%b/%Y %H:%M:%S"
        },
        'simple': {
            'format': '%(levelname)s %(message)s'
        },
    },
    'handlers': {
        'file': {
            'level': 'DEBUG',
            'class': 'logging.FileHandler',
            'filename': 'mysite.log',
            'formatter': 'verbose'
        },
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django': {
            'handlers':['file'],
            'propagate': True,
            'level':'DEBUG',
        },
        'MYAPP': {
            'handlers': ['file'],
            'level': 'DEBUG',
        },
    }
}