Heroku static files not loading, Django

Question

I'm trying to push my Django project to Heroku, but it isn't loading the staticfiles.

I used this to setup the things, everything is fine but I'm not able to fix the issue with static files.

My directory structure is like this

help_the_needy
    help_the_needy
        __init__.py
        settings.py
        urls.py
        views.py
        wsgi.py
    manage.py
    Procfile  
    requirements.txt  
    static
        css
        font-awesome
        fonts  
        img  
        js
    templates
        base.html
        display_list2.html
        index.html

Here is the complete code (all files).

This is my settings.py.

I tried alot of things to fix this, but nothing seems to work.

When I push it does copy static files but it's not loading them.

Can someone please point me to my mistake? Where is it wrong?

Answer 1

I have been dealing with the same problem too. And here are the 2 things that I changed in my code.

(I'm using Django 1.7)

1) settings.py

I add these lines to the setting files

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'
TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(BASE_DIR,  'templates'),
    # Add to this list all the locations containing your static files 
)

STATIC_ROOT: this tells Django where to (a) put the static files when you run python manage.py collectstatic and (b) find the static files when you run the application

TEMPLATE_DIRS: this tells Django where to look for your static files when it search for statics files when you run python manage.py collectstatic

2) wsgi.py

Originally my file was:

import os
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "xxxx.settings")

from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
application = get_wsgi_application()

And I changed it to:

import os
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "xxxx.settings")

from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
from whitenoise.django import DjangoWhiteNoise
application = get_wsgi_application()
application = DjangoWhiteNoise(application)

Read here for more information on whitenoise: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/django-assets#whitenoise

---

Also, remember to install whitenoise: pip install whitenoise==2.0.6

Before deploying the project, run: python manage.py collectstatic

This will create a folder indicated by STATIC_ROOT (declared in your settings.py), containing all your static files.

Answer 2

Since it's been a few years since this was posted (and it still pops up when I search for the issue), here's what worked for me in Django 3.2.

pip install whitenoise

Make sure in settings.py you have

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Extra places for collectstatic to find static files.
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
)

Add whitenoise to your Middleware:

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware',
]

Make sure the directory you specified as the STATIC_ROOT (staticfiles) exists in your base directory and is not empty.

After that, I committed the changes and Heroku was able to build the static files and everything worked fine.

Answer 3

pip install whitenoise    

Add whitenoise to requirement.txt.

and also add whitenoise in the middleware of settings.py

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
    'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware', #add whitenoise
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
]

Follow the steps in https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/django-assets

Answer 4

Your STATICFILES_DIRS setting is wrong. It should be pointing to the actual location of the "static" directory containing the files:

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

Answer 5

It looks like django don't know where your static_root is. This folder is autogenerated when you fire manage.py collectstatic Make sure that the folders static and templates are inside your django app. You didn't created a django app to put this folders into. You created a django project the next step is to create a django app with something like this python manage.py startapp polls

# Absolute filesystem path to the Django project directory:
DJANGO_ROOT = dirname(dirname(abspath(__file__)))
# Absolute filesystem path to the top-level project folder:
SITE_ROOT = dirname(DJANGO_ROOT)

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = normpath(join(SITE_ROOT, 'static_root'))

Answer 6

Your urls.py file lacks the setting to manage and route requests for static resources.

in order to provide access to static resorces you must add to urlpatterns of urls.py:

urlpatterns += patterns('',
        (r'^static/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve', {'document_root': settings.STATIC_ROOT}),
    )