Static media fails to load in Django

Question

My settings.py contains the following configuration parameters.

STATIC_ROOT = ''

STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    'C:/Users/ABC/Desktop/DBMS/DjangoProject/tvshows',
)

My project's CSS file is located at C:/Users/ABC/Desktop/DBMS/DjangoProject/tvshows/static/default.css.

I have a mock HTML file that should pull in the CSS content, but the URL is a 404.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}static/default.css" />

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}default.css" />

You need to also edit your urls:

Answer 2

Things to check:

1. DEBUG = True in settings.py

2. urls

   from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
   
   # ... the rest of your URLconf goes here ...
   
   urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()
   

3. use context processor or load static if {{ STATIC_URL }} isn't working

   If {{ STATIC_URL }} isn't working in your template, you're probably not using RequestContext when rendering the template.

   As a brief refresher, context processors add variables into the contexts of every template. However, context processors require that you use RequestContext when rendering templates. This happens automatically if you're using a generic view, but in views written by hand you'll need to explicitally use RequestContext To see how that works, and to read more details, check out Subclassing Context: RequestContext.