Error with collectstatic while deploying Django app to Heroku

Question

I'm trying to deploy a Django app to Heroku, it starts to build, download and installs everything, but that's what I get when it comes to collecting static files

remote: -----> $ python manage.py collectstatic --noinput
remote:        Traceback (most recent call last):
remote:          File "manage.py", line 22, in <module>
remote:            execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 363, in execute_from_command_line
remote:            utility.execute()
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 355, in execute
remote:            self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 283, in run_from_argv
remote:            self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 330, in execute
remote:            output = self.handle(*args, **options)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/management/commands/collectstatic.py", line 199, in handle
remote:            collected = self.collect()
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/management/commands/collectstatic.py", line 115, in collect
remote:            for path, storage in finder.list(self.ignore_patterns):
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/finders.py", line 112, in list
remote:            for path in utils.get_files(storage, ignore_patterns):
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/utils.py", line 28, in get_files
remote:            directories, files = storage.listdir(location)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/core/files/storage.py", line 397, in listdir
remote:            for entry in os.listdir(path):
remote:        FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/tmp/build_955b171c774667db8cab1dfc1ff5a690/staticfiles'    
remote:  !     Error while running '$ python manage.py collectstatic --noinput'.
    remote:        See traceback above for details.
    remote: 
    remote:        You may need to update application code to resolve this error.
    remote:        Or, you can disable collectstatic for this application:
    remote: 
    remote:           $ heroku config:set DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC=1
    remote: 
    remote:        https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/django-assets
    remote:  !     Push rejected, failed to compile Python app.
    remote: 
    remote:  !     Push failed
    remote: Verifying deploy...
    remote: 
    remote: !   Push rejected to somesuit.
    remote: 
    To https://git.heroku.com/somesuit.git

This is the whole settings.py file

"""
Django settings for somesuit project.

Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 1.10.6.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/settings/
"""

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 = True

ALLOWED_HOSTS = [
    '**.herokuapp.com',
]


# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'core.apps.CoreConfig',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    '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',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'somesuit.urls'

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 = 'somesuit.wsgi.application'


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

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
        'NAME': '*',
        'USER': '*',
        'PASSWORD': '*',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}

db_from_env = dj_database_url.config(conn_max_age=500)
DATABASES['default'].update(db_from_env)


# 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 = 'UTC'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True

SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO', 'https')

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'),
)

STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'

When i write:

heroku config:set DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC=1

Error is disapears, but my suit doesn`t find staticfiles

Answer 1

I read the component made by heroku and discover something that fix my problem https://github.com/heroku/django-heroku/blob/master/django_heroku/core.py

TL;DR Make sure STATIC and STATICFILES dirs exists.

They create the directory /staticfiles/ if it doesnt exist, so I created ALSO /static/ and that solves my problem.

This is my settings.py

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(file)))
...
MIDDLEWARE = [...
'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware',
...
]
...
SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO', 'https')

STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage'

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')

**STATIC_TMP = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static')**

STATIC_URL = '/static/'

**os.makedirs(STATIC_TMP, exist_ok=True)**

os.makedirs(STATIC_ROOT, exist_ok=True)

STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
)

///

Actually look at the error:

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 
'/tmp/build_f52ae90b128b348cb2a6880ecac30818/static'

There's no static folder

Answer 2

DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC=1 is for the heroku build to not to run the collectstatic command when app is pushed/built.

The error says that staticfiles dir is not present. You need to commit a directory with a same name. Read this here