Django Static files 404

Question

I can't get my static files to come up. I've tried various settings and directory configurations and so on, but they just turn up as 404s. I have debug_toolbar installed so know that STATIC_URL is reaching my request context.

Directory structure showing /static (I have also placed the directory inside of the meals app folder, and users, just to try it out.

/mealmate
    /mealmate
    /meals
    /static
        /css
             /bootstrap.min.css
    /templates
    /users

Settings.py (a few important settings though I've experimented with a variety of other ones):

MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_PATH, 'media/')

STATIC_URL = '/static/'

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
)

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'mealmate.wsgi.application'

In base.html rendered

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/bootstrap.min.css">

Any ideas? Thanks

Answer 1

This is the working solution for static/media/template access in django for windows,

settings.py

import os.path

STATIC_ROOT = ''

STATIC_URL = '/static/'

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

Answer 2

in Django you have one more advantage for your templates and it's you can link statics like this and maybe this is your problem!

<script src="{% static 'myapp/bootstrap.min.js' %}"></script>
<link href="{% static 'myapp/bootstrap.css' %}" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

its better to use

{% static 'filename' %}

and its also easier to know more about, i refer to https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/intro/tutorial06/

Answer 3

If you are running this on a web server are you copying the static files to a public accessible folder? For example:

# web accessible folder
STATIC_ROOT = '/home/your_name/www/mealmate/static/'

# URL prefix for static files.
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    # location of your application, should not be public web accessible 
    '/home/your_name/website/mealmate/static',
)

# List of finder classes that know how to find static files in
# various locations.
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
)

Then you can use this post Django static Files and copy the static files to the public accessible folder using manage.py

# --link    Create a symbolic link to each file instead of copying.
# --noinput Do NOT prompt the user for input of any kind.
#
python manage.py collectstatic -link --noinput

Hope that helps!

Answer 4

from comments above - run this

python manage.py findstatic --verbosity 2 css/styles.css

No matching file found for 'css/styles.css'.

Looking in the following locations:
/Users/yourname/Documents/Workspace/test/staticfiles

I simply renamed my static folder to staticfiles and all was well. (I'm on osx + django 1.x)

use insecure mode may not hurt if you're on local dev box - otherwise you may still get 404 errors.

python manage.py runserver --insecure

UPDATE

actually digging into settings.py found the infringing line.

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

Answer 5

For me this turned out to be caused by setting debug to false in settings.py. A workaround is to pass the --insecure switch to runserver, but the real solution is to use a proper web server to serve the static files. See the answers to this question for more details.

Answer 6

I simply added the equivalent of

STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    '/absolute_path_to_project/mealmate/static',
)

to get this working. Of course, replace absolute_path_to_project with your actual path and, if necessary, add the drive letter.