Deployed Django project does not load static files - django

Question

I have just deployed (first time ever) a Django project to a web server. Everything (including postgres) works flawlessly, except that static images won't load.
Here is the relevant part of the settings.py:
# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/howto/static-files/
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static/")
#STATICFILES_DIRS = [
# os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static"),
#]
# Default primary key field type
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#default-auto-field
DEFAULT_AUTO_FIELD = 'django.db.models.BigAutoField'
LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = 'home'
LOGIN_URL = 'login'
LOGOUT_URL = 'logout'
AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'account.CustomUser'
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media/')
The error message I get is the following in the console:
"GET /static/images/logo.png HTTP/1.1" 404 1808
However, when checking the file path in the console I have the following:
root#melius:/django/melius/static/images#
In this folder the files are present.
Where is my mistake?

Answer 1

There can be two reaon your static files not working.
First of all, Django doesn't serve static files on production.
Also i notice your static settings are wrongly configured.
Make sure your setting.py is look like this:
STATICFILES_DIRS = [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'YOUR STATIC FILE FOLDERS')]
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
If you run your application on Nginx or apache2please make sure you configured the.conf` file properly to serve the static files.
Also, there is a straightforward and easy solution, that is whitenoise
If you don't want to serve your static files with Nginx or a similar server.
You can try whitenoise
To use whitenoise, please install it first and update your settings.py file like this:
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage'
and add this in middlware before the sessionmiddleware
MIDDLEWARE = [
'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware', # Serve static in production without nginx or apache
'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
........
]
Hope the solution will solve your problem
Here you go for whitenoise docs: http://whitenoise.evans.io/en/stable/
Note: static root and static dirs shound't be same