Setting DEBUG = False causes 500 Error

Question

Once I change the DEBUG = False, my site will generate 500 (using wsgi & manage.py runserver), and there is no error info in Apache error log and it will run normally when I change debug to True .

I'm using Django 1.5 & Python 2.7.3 here is Apache access log and without any log in apache error log

www.beta800.net:80 222.247.56.11 - - [28/Feb/2013:13:42:28 +0800] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 500 257 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.22 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/25.0.1364.97 Safari/537.22"
www.beta800.net:80 222.247.56.11 - - [28/Feb/2013:13:42:28 +0800] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 500 257 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.22 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/25.0.1364.97 Safari/537.22"
www.beta800.net:80 222.247.56.11 - - [28/Feb/2013:13:42:28 +0800] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 500 257 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.22 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/25.0.1364.97 Safari/537.22"

Here is my settings file:

import os.path    
DEBUG = False 
#TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG

HERE = os.path.dirname(__file__)
ADMINS = (
    ('admin', '[e-mail]'),
)

MANAGERS = ADMINS

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
        'NAME': 'zdm',                      # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
        'USER': 'root',                      # Not used with sqlite3.
        'PASSWORD': 'passwd',                  # Not used with sqlite3.
        'HOST': '',                      # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
        'PORT': '',                      # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.
    }
}

# Local time zone for this installation. Choices can be found here:
# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_zones_by_name
# although not all choices may be available on all operating systems.
# In a Windows environment this must be set to your system time zone.
TIME_ZONE = 'America/Chicago'

# Language code for this installation. All choices can be found here:
# http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/language-identifiers.html
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

SITE_ID = 1

# If you set this to False, Django will make some optimizations so as not
# to load the internationalization machinery.
USE_I18N = True

# If you set this to False, Django will not format dates, numbers and
# calendars according to the current locale.
USE_L10N = True

# If you set this to False, Django will not use timezone-aware datetimes.
USE_TZ = True

# Absolute filesystem path to the directory that will hold user-uploaded files.
# Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/media/"
MEDIA_ROOT = ''

# URL that handles the media served from MEDIA_ROOT. Make sure to use a
# trailing slash.
# Examples: "http://media.lawrence.com/media/", "http://example.com/media/"
MEDIA_URL = ''

# Absolute path to the directory static files should be collected to.
# Don't put anything in this directory yourself; store your static files
# in apps' "static/" subdirectories and in STATICFILES_DIRS.
# Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/static/"
#STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(HERE, 'static').replace('\\','/')

# URL prefix for static files.
# Example: "http://media.lawrence.com/static/"
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
#STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(HERE, 'static').replace('\\','/')
S= os.path.join(HERE, 'static').replace('\\','/')

# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
    '/home/zdm/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',
#    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.DefaultStorageFinder',
)

# Make this unique, and don't share it with anybody.
SECRET_KEY = '9a7!^gp8ojyk-^^d@*whuw!0rml+r+uaie4ur$(do9zz_6!hy0'

# List of callables that know how to import templates from various sources.
TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
#     'django.template.loaders.eggs.Loader',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    # Uncomment the next line for simple clickjacking protection:
    # 'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'zdm.urls'

# Python dotted path to the WSGI application used by Django's runserver.
WSGI_APPLICATION = 'zdm.wsgi.application'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/django_templates" or "C:/www/django/templates".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
    '/home/zdm/templates',
)

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # Uncomment the next line to enable the admin:
    'django.contrib.admin',
    # Uncomment the next line to enable admin documentation:
    # 'django.contrib.admindocs',
    'zdm',
    'portal',
    'admin',
    'tagging',
)

Answer 1

If you want to allow for all hosts. Use ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*',] instead of ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']

Answer 2

Django 1.5 introduced the allowed hosts setting that is required for security reasons. A settings file created with Django 1.5 has this new section which you need to add:

# Hosts/domain names that are valid for this site; required if DEBUG is False
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/#allowed-hosts
ALLOWED_HOSTS = []

Add your host here like ['www.beta800.net'] or ['*'] for a quick test, but don't use ['*'] for production.

Answer 3

For what it's worth - I was getting a 500 with DEBUG = False on some pages only. Tracing back the exception with pdb revealed a missing asset (I suspect the {% static ... %} template tag was the culprit for the 500.

Answer 4

I encountered the same issue just recently in Django 2.0. I was able to figure out the problem by setting DEBUG_PROPAGATE_EXCEPTIONS = True. See here: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/ref/settings/#debug-propagate-exceptions

In my case, the error was ValueError: Missing staticfiles manifest entry for 'admin/css/base.css'. I fixed that by locally running python manage.py collectstatic.

Answer 5

One small thing to note, If the array has None in it, then all the subsequent allowed hosts are ignored.

ALLOWED_HOSTS = [
    "localhost",
    None,
    'example.com', # First DNS alias (set up in the app)
    #'www.example.com', # Second DNS alias (set up in the app)
]

Django version 1.8.4

Answer 6

I ran into this issue. Turns out I was including in the template, using the static template tag, a file that did not exist anymore. A look in the logs showed me the problem.

I guess this is just one of many possible reasons for this kind of error.

Moral of the story: always log errors and always check logs.