Django runserver not serving some static files - django

Question

My local testing server for Django v1.8.2 on Windows 8.1 is only serving certain static files. Others are giving a 404 error.
#urls.py - excerpt
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^$', views.index)
] + staticfiles_urlpatterns()
#settings.py - excerpt
INSTALLED_APPS = (
'django.contrib.admin',
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django.contrib.staticfiles',
'main',
'users'
)
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static/")
As far as I can tell the development server is configured to serve static files. When running runserver I get no warnings, and my code displays no syntax errors (import statements do exist and so forth). I did for testing purposes run collectstatic before starting the server just to be sure at least once.
My view template is:
{% load staticfiles %}
<img src="{% static 'main/img/ComingSoon.jpg' %}" alt="Coming Soon">
The link generated is /static/main/img/ComingSoon.jpg which looks correct, the file does exist in that location. What perplexes me is that this directory produces a 404 error, but other static files are served. The directory hierarchy is:
static/
admin/
css/
..
js/
..
img/
..
main/
img/
ComingSoon.jpg
The URL localhost:8000/static/admin/img/ gives an expected message about indexes being not allowed. However, localhost:8000/static/main/img/ reports \main\img\ cannot be found. Both are 404 statuses. Images within static/admin/img/ do display correctly with the same links as what is giving an error. The Administration site for Django does display correctly.
Why would one directory within static/ not be indexed or accessible?

Answer 1

According to the Django documentation regarding static/:
This should be an initially empty destination directory for collecting
your static files from their permanent locations into one directory
for ease of deployment; it is not a place to store your static files
permanently. You should do that in directories that will be found by
staticfiles’s finders, which by default, are 'static/' app
sub-directories and any directories you include in STATICFILES_DIRS).
I moved the files to another directory such as:
myApp/
main/
static/
main/
img/
..
static/
..
After running collectstatic I noticed the script created the subdirectories in myApp/static/ as expected and it must have generated the URLs needed because it now properly serves the files.