The model objects from django admin aren't connected to the backend model objects

Question

So I'm using a $5 digital ocean droplet using ubuntu and nginix to host a django website, I followed along this this tutorial and this guide. So a part of the guide said to run gunicorn --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 myproject.wsgi from the virtual env, it worked and as a test I created a highlights object to see if it would show, it did and this is what it looked like:

EDIT 3: Service file

[Unit]
Description=gunicorn daemon
Requires=gunicorn.socket
After=network.target

[Service]
User=apple
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/home/apple/sanskar_handicrafts
ExecStart=/home/apple/sanskar_handicrafts/env/bin/gunicorn \
          --access-logfile - \
          --workers 3 \
          --bind unix:/run/gunicorn.sock \
          sanskar_handicrafts.wsgi:application

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After which I added a gunicorn socket and completed the article till the point where it told me to run sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full', however after I ran it, first of all, the css for the admin page was gone but the bigger concern was that after I added a few extra objects from the admin panel the changes didn't seem to be noticed by my views.py as when I displayed the contents of Highlights.objects.all() it only showed the one from above. But the admin page does show that the objects had been successfully added. Also the github repo's media folder didn't show any of the new images in them including the one uploaded from gunicorn --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 myproject.wsgi they only had the images I uploaded while in local development

However when I ls into the media folder from my virtual env running nginix it had all the media files from the images I uploaded while in local as well as all the new ones.

I have 2 models and this problem seems to prevail for both of them, I've tried migrations, restarting the ngnix server, and pulling and pushing to github, none have worked so far. Also the new images do seem to exist in the required url

Here's my models.py:

from django.db import models

class Highlights(models.Model):
    img = models.ImageField(upload_to='highlights/')

class Gallery(models.Model):
    img = models.ImageField()

and here's my views.py:

from django.shortcuts import render,get_object_or_404
from django.core.mail import send_mail
from .models import Gallery,Highlights


h_images = Highlights.objects.all()
g_images = Gallery.objects.all()

cnt = 1
rows = []
row = []
# Dividing the images into rows of 3 images per row as the maximum and creating a list of those rows
for image in g_images:
    if cnt < 3:
        row.append(image)
    else:
        row.append(image)
        cnt = 0
        rows.append(row)
        row = []
    cnt += 1

if row:
    rows.append(row)

# Seperating the rows into multiple pages to insure faster loading and better optimization
max_rows_per_page = 1
home_page = rows[:max_rows_per_page]
divided_rows_list = []
first = max_rows_per_page
last = max_rows_per_page + max_rows_per_page
curr_page = 1
for i in range(max_rows_per_page, len(rows), max_rows_per_page):
    divided_rows_list.append(rows[first:last])
    first = last
    last += max_rows_per_page


def home(request):
    return render(request, 'index.html',{'images':h_images})

def gallery(request):
    return render(request, 'gallery.html', {'rows':home_page,'nxt':1,'prev':len(divided_rows_list)})

    # return render(request,'gallery.html',{'rows':rows})

def nxt_pg(request,num):
    if num > len(divided_rows_list) or num == 0:
        return gallery(request)
    elif num < 0:
        num = len(divided_rows_list)
    return render(request, 'gallery.html', {'rows': divided_rows_list[num - 1], 'nxt': num + 1, 'prev': num - 1})

EDIT:

So Ankit told me the problem was because I hadn't run collect static but I had done it so, this is what the static part of my settings.py looks like:

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

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

this is what I get when I run sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/myproject

EDITED:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name 139.59.20.1;

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location /static/ {
        alias /home/apple/sanskar_handicrafts/staticfiles;
    }

    location /media/ {
        root /home/apple/sanskar_handicrafts;
    }
    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://unix:/run/gunicorn.sock;
    }
}

Also I do have a static_root folder and this is what happens when I try to use collectstatic now:

So I don't think it's a problem with collectstatic.

Answer 1

First the static files issue: you named the static files folder as staticfiles, but the URL remained static so the nginx config needs adjustment:

location /static/ {
    alias /home/apple/sanskar_handicrafts/staticfiles;
}

The root directive appends the location part, the alias does not. Restart the nginx to apply new config.

Let's look into the query problem. When we import a Python file, the interpreter executes its contents. So when you import the views.py during gunicorn startup, it executes the Highlights.objects.all() etc. parts right away, saves the result to the h_images variable and moves to the next line.

When you open the website main page that calls the home view function, it will use the h_images variable that was executed previously instead of creating a new query. So it won't show the newly added elements.

The fix is easy: just move everything inside a view function, or a separate function which is called by a view function. Don't put anything dynamic into the global scope, because it will be executed only once when you start or restart the app-server.

After that and also after every code/settings.py/etc change don't forget to restart the gunicorn app-server by calling:

sudo systemctl restart gunicorn.service

On your local dev environment, you start the Django bultin runserver in debug mode, that restarts itself automatically on code change. But in production environment you have to restart the app server manually.