ImproperlyConfigured at / Empty static prefix not permitted – Django

Question:

I’m working on uploading/displaying images with Django.

The website is deployed on Heroku.

Following this tutorial I was able to successfully upload images.

However, the images weren’t being displayed in the template.

I then learned that my urls.py should have this line at the end: 

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

I added this to the end of my urls.py but now I’m getting this error:

ImproperlyConfigured at / Empty static prefix not permitted

I have MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT in my settings.py and neither are empty. 

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))

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

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

Why is this error happening and how would I fix it?

Here’s what I think is the relevant part of my urls.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static
import notifications
admin.autodiscover()

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    ....urls......

) + static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)
Asked By: Daniel Scott

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Source

Answers:

I added the same line in my urls.py and got the same error as you.

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

The documentation here says to use settings.STATIC_URL and settings.STATIC_ROOT

I changed it to the documentation version

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    ....urls......

) + static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)

and the error went away!

I checked my settings file and made sure settings.MEDIA_URL and settings.MEDIA_ROOT were both defined correctly. Later I adjusted urls.py back to using settings.MEDIA_URL and settings.MEDIA_ROOT. Everything worked as expected.

These are the relevant parts of my settings.py file:

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))
REPOSITORY_ROOT = os.path.dirname(BASE_DIR)

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/howto/static-files/

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

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

I think MEDIA_URL was set incorrectly

Answered By: Devin

Just in case you have this issue, ensure you have both MEDIA_URL AND MEDIA_ROOT set.

I was receiving the error

ImproperlyConfigured at / Empty static prefix not permitted

when I only had MEDIA_ROOT set in django 1.11

Alternatively, django project wiki says that it cannot refer to a URL in debug mode:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/howto/static-files/#serving-files-uploaded-by-a-user-during-development

Answered By: Mykel

You have too check both of the MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT as well as for static files STATIC_ROOT STATIC_URL are defined correctly.

Check correct spelling also 🙂

If one of them is miss configured those will cause this error.

Answered By: Projesh Bhoumik

I had recently got the same error when working with Django 2.1 The problem was I did not specify explicitly MEDIA_URL = '/media/' in the project settings file. Once I declared the same the error went away.

Answered By: TejasPancholi

To fix this error, I had to put STATIC_ROOT and STATIC_URL above the STATICFILES_DIRS declaration.

Answered By: ehacinom

To resolve the problem, the following statements must be added to the settings.py file:

MEDIA_URL = '/media/'

MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "media")
Answered By: Antonio José

Make sure that settings.py has:

# Media

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

Then in the urls.py, try this

urlpatterns[
    ...
]

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL,
                          document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)
Answered By: Avinash Pandey

I am following Django 2.2 & Python | The Ultimate Web Development Bootcamp my issue was that I have forgot to declare these to portfolio-project/portfolio/settings.py/ to the bottom area:

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/howto/static-files/
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media')
MEDIA_URL = '/Media/'
Answered By: sogu

Fix this error by adding this line in urls.py

urlpatterns = [
 ....
]  + static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)
Answered By: Ashok