Static files serving issue using Django channels - django

Question

I am trying my hands on this example for websockets in Django, https://github.com/jacobian/channels-example as I have intention to use it my production application as well which is hosted in Heroku, and using Whitenoise there.
So, after cloning the above mentioned example, I did some tweaks using Whitenoise, but now on first visit to the application through any browser (chrome or FF) the static files doesn't load and when I refresh again it loads static files, and in third load it again goes off and so on.
Here is my settings file:
import os
import random
import string
import dj_database_url
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get("SECRET_KEY", "".join(random.choice(string.printable) for i in range(40)))
DEBUG = os.environ.get("DEBUG", False)
# Application definition
INSTALLED_APPS = (
'django.contrib.admin',
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django.contrib.staticfiles',
'channels',
'chat',
)
MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
'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 = 'chat.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',
],
'debug': DEBUG,
},
},
)
# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/#databases
DATABASES = {
'default': dj_database_url.config(default="postgres:///channels-example", conn_max_age=500)
}
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/1.9/topics/i18n/
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'
TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'
USE_I18N = True
USE_L10N = True
USE_TZ = True
# 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/1.9/howto/static-files/
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
# Extra places for collectstatic to find static files.
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
]
# Channel settings
CHANNEL_LAYERS = {
"default": {
"BACKEND": "asgi_redis.RedisChannelLayer",
"CONFIG": {
"hosts": [os.environ.get('REDIS_URL', 'redis://localhost:6379')],
},
"ROUTING": "chat.routing.channel_routing",
},
}
# Logging
LOGGING = {
'version': 1,
'disable_existing_loggers': False,
'handlers': {
'console': {
'class': 'logging.StreamHandler',
},
},
'loggers': {
'django': {
'handlers': ['console'],
'propagate': True,
'level': 'INFO'
},
'chat': {
'handlers': ['console'],
'propagate': False,
'level': 'DEBUG',
},
},
}
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'
Here is the other file which I made changes to routing.py:
from channels.staticfiles import StaticFilesConsumer
from . import consumers
channel_routing = {
# This makes Django serve static files from settings.STATIC_URL, similar
# to django.views.static.serve. This isn't ideal (not exactly production
# quality) but it works for a minimal example.
# 'http.request': StaticFilesConsumer(),
# Wire up websocket channels to our consumers:
'websocket.connect': consumers.ws_connect,
'websocket.receive': consumers.ws_receive,
'websocket.disconnect': consumers.ws_disconnect,
}
Procfile is:
web: daphne chat.asgi:channel_layer --port $PORT --bind 0.0.0.0 -v2
worker: python manage.py runworker -v2
I have not tried it on Heroku as if now, just on localhost I observed this behavior so didnt even integrate the solution with original application. I used heroku local to run the application locally.
What am I doing wrong? And is the process mentioned in Procfile production ready on Heroku?
Thanks

Answer 1

Try upgrading your Django channels to 1.0.3 and whitenoise 3.3.0 the example you mentioned Is using an outdated version and some bug fixes where added to allow Daphne to serve static content with whitenoise. Alternatively you can just leverage on s3 bucket to serve your static content which is the preferred approach to serve static content with Django.
https://github.com/django/channels/issues/87