Why is my static CSS not working in Django?

Question

I am having problem with my static CSS not working for my Django web app. I have followed the directions from the Django Static Link tutorial on handling static files, but it is still not working.

Settings

# 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 = '/Users/a9austin/Development/sites/AlphaSocks/src/static_root/'

# URL prefix for static files.
# Example: "http://media.lawrence.com/static/"
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# 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.
'/Users/a9austin/Development/sites/AlphaSocks/src/staticfiles'

)

view

#from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.shortcuts import render_to_response


def index(request):
return render_to_response('index.html')

index.html

<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{STATIC_URL}}css/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" >

And my directory organization is

src->staticfiles->css->style.css

'What' is not working? How do you render your views, using render() or render_to_response()? Is static files context processor turned on in settings.py? — Jure C., Nov 19 '12 at 01:06
Yes I am using render_to_response, I will update it with my view. It's not working by the css is not actually changing my html. — AustinT, Nov 19 '12 at 01:11
see this [post](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13407383/django-cant-find-static-images-in-templates/13410225#13410225) to handle static files — Otskimanot Sqilal, Nov 19 '12 at 01:15
@OtskimanotSqilal Thank you for the reply, I just updated it with my STATICFILES_DIR, my css is still not showing up. — AustinT, Nov 19 '12 at 01:32
The way you configured `STATICFILES_DIRS` and `STATIC_ROOT` is incorrect. They cannot contain the same directories. Please refer to my answer for more info. — miki725, Nov 19 '12 at 01:50

score 55 · Accepted Answer · edited May 17 '23 at 04:21

For Django to serve static files, you have to make sure you have a couple of settings.

STATIC_URL

This setting specifies what URL should static files map to under. You have that done already.

STATICFILES_DIRS

This specifies all the folders on your system where Django should look for static files. The idea is that you might have a couple of apps within your project, and each app might require a different set of static files. So for organizational purposes, each app might contain a static directory where it will store only its static files. So then Django has to have a way to know where those directories are. This is what this setting is for.

STATIC_ROOT

This setting specifies where Django will copy all the static files to and not where the static files are already at. The idea is that once you leave development into production, Django can't serve static files anymore due to issues I will not go here (it's in the article). However, for production, all static files should be in a single directory, instead of in many like specified in STATICFILES_DIRS. So this setting specifies a directory to which Django will copy all the static files from all files within STATICFILES_DIRS by running the following command:

$ python manage.py collectstatic

Please note this is only necessary once you go into production and also that the directory specified here cannot be the same as any directory specified in STATICFILES_DIRS.

Urls.py

In development for Django to serve your static files, you have to include the static URLs in your urls.py:

from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns

urlpatterns = ...

urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()

Once you will complete all of the above things, your static files should be served as long as you have DEBUG = True. Out of the list above, you seem to only complete STATIC_URL. Also please note that all the steps I described above are in the docs you linked in your question (link). It might be a bit confusing in the beginning but if you read it a couple of times, it becomes clearer.

Thank you for the reply. Let me make sure I understand. So STATICFILES_DIR is actaully where the static files are. And STATIC_ROOT is where python will copy/handle them? — AustinT, Nov 19 '12 at 02:15
Yes, but it will only copy them by running the `manage.py` command and it is only necessary for production. In development Django will look and serve static files located in any of the directories in `STATICFILES_DIRS`. Also I forgot to mention, in the view make sure you use `RequestContext` to be able to use `{{ STATIC_URL }}`. The answer by Kavanaugh Development shows that. — miki725, Nov 19 '12 at 02:18
Okay so when I called python manage.py collectstatic, it gives me an error. '"Your STATICFILES_DIRS setting is not a tuple or list; " django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Your STATICFILES_DIRS setting is not a tuple or list; perhaps you forgot a trailing comma?' I updated my post to what I have changed my root and dir. Please take a look. Thank again for helping me out — AustinT, Nov 19 '12 at 02:25
Right. So your `STATICFILES_DIRS` is like `( 'string_here' )` which is not a tuple. Change that to `( 'string_here', )` which is a Python tuple. — miki725, Nov 19 '12 at 02:30
But again, for development you don't have to collect all the static files. Django will serve them from `STATICFILES_DIRS` directories directly... — miki725, Nov 19 '12 at 02:32

score 13 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 03 '21 at 15:23

13

Try clearing your cache. If you are using Google chrome go to your settings>clear browsing data> select clear cached images and files then click clear data

answered Feb 03 '21 at 15:23

Joshua Blue- Jack

131
1
2

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 12 '21 at 11:58

5

For me it was changing

<link rel="stylesheet" href=" {% static '/css/style.css' %} ">

to

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href=" {% static '/css/style.css' %} ">

answered Aug 12 '21 at 11:58

Phil

624
7
19

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 13 '20 at 10:05

After doing all, setting DEBUG= True, python collectstatic, clearing cache, opening in incognito mode if the problem still exists copy your .css file into another new .css file in static folder, and then run collectstatic command. This worked out for me. I hope this will help you.

David Mezza · Answer 5 · 2021-11-10T13:11:56.943

2

Sometimes all it takes is just "Ctrl + F5"

A Total refresh of the page, does the trick.

Or Ctrl + Shift + R

edited Nov 10 '21 at 13:11

answered Nov 09 '21 at 11:19

David Mezza

133
1
5

This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://stackoverflow.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment on any post](https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/comment); instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead). - [From Review](/review/late-answers/30295459) – Nov 09 '21 at 16:02
1

This solved the problem for me. – Melanga Dissanayake Mar 30 '22 at 07:09
Am glad it did. Works every time for me – David Mezza Apr 21 '22 at 11:41
This is the same answer as Raghav Rathi's from March 26th and Joshua Blue- Jack's from February 3rd. – TylerH Jul 05 '22 at 13:57

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 19 '12 at 02:05

Adding RequestContext to the response should load the STATIC_URL variable into the template.

Try changing:

from django.shortcuts import render_to_response

def index(request):
    return render_to_response('index.html')

to:

from django.shortcuts import render_to_response
from django.template.context import RequestContext

def index(request):
    return render_to_response("index.html", context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Refer to the Django Documentation on Referring to static files in templates for more information.

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Mar 26 '21 at 19:46

1

If there is no problem in coding and no errors shown. Then you can do this this to try to solve the problem.

Clear your Cache:

If you are using Google chrome go to your settings --> clear browsing data --> select clear cached images and files then click clear data

edited Mar 26 '21 at 19:46

IndieGameDev

2,905
3
16
29

answered Mar 26 '21 at 18:20

Raghav Rathi

187
2
7

1

This is the same answer as Joshua Blue- Jack's from February 3rd. – TylerH Jul 05 '22 at 13:58

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered May 19 '21 at 20:25

If this is happening to you in development mode, make sure you set DEBUG=True in your settings.py file. Also make sure that the MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT are set in your settings.py file like so :

MEDIA_URL  = '/mymediafolder/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'mymediafolder')

And then in your main urls file myapp/urls.py you must have the following :

from django.conf.urls import url, include
from . import views
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
from django.conf.urls.static import static
from django.conf import settings

urlpatterns = [
    #Your url patterns here
]

urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()
urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

The staticfiles_urlpatterns() is used to serve static files in development mode.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 16 '22 at 07:33

I had to delete my staticfiles folder. It seemed like there was a similarly named file in it which was being read from or written to and this wasn't the one my app was pulling from for the site. After I ran 'collectstatic' again, it re-added the staticfiles folder and contents and is now working and updating properly.

score -1 · Answer 10 · answered May 22 '22 at 08:31

My solution may be silly, but maybe it will help someone. If you copy the line from the internet instead of typing it, make sure to adjust your quotation marks. Worked for me.

<link rel=”stylesheet” type="text/css" href="{% static 'styles.css' %}">

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{% static 'styles.css' %}">

score -5 · Answer 11 · edited Jul 05 '22 at 13:58

There is an easy way if you feel that your CSS isn't working. If your project isn't way too huge then you can just make the CSS file in the same file as the HTML. And then run it.That way it will run for example

`

<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <title>Promantus Bot</title>
      <style type="text/css"> 
* {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

body {
    background-color:#FF625F;
}

h1, p {
    font-family: sans-serif;
    text-align: center;
    color: #323330;
    font-size:  100px;
}


p {
    font-size: 30px;
}

#output, #container {
    display: flex;
    justify-content: center;
    margin-top: 100px;
}


input {
    background-color: #eee;
    border: none;
    font-family: sans-serif;
    color: #000;
    padding: 15px 32px;
    text-align: center;
    text-decoration: none;
    display: inline-block;
    font-size: 30px;
}






</style>


</head>

<body>

  <div id="output"></div>

<div id="container">
    <input type="text" id="input" value="">
</div>





</body>

</html>
`
It's going to run fine this way.

This does not answer the question that was asked. – TylerH Jul 05 '22 at 13:58 — TylerH, Jul 05 '22 at 13:58

Why is my static CSS not working in Django?

Settings

view

index.html

11 Answers11

Linked