Django whitenoise is fine for production but gives 404 for debug mode

Question

I use django white noise and it works when DEBUG = False; however when setting DEBUG = True, I cannot load the image anymore and get 404 response.

Note: I am aware of hard-refresh. I already used static collection and django migrations.

Here is my code:

django-admin startproject mysite
cd mysite/
python3 manage.py migrate
(after setup settings.py):
python3 manage.py collectstatic

pip show whitenoise|grep Version
Version: 6.2.0

mysite/mysite/wsgi.py

import os
from whitenoise import WhiteNoise
from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
from mysite.settings import BASE_DIR

os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'mysite.settings')

application = get_wsgi_application()
application = WhiteNoise(application, root=os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "staticfiles")  )

mysite/mysite/asgi.py

import os

from django.core.asgi import get_asgi_application

os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'mysite.settings')

application = get_asgi_application()

mysite/mysite/urls.py

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import include, path
from django.conf.urls.static import static
from django.conf import settings


urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
]

mysite/mysite/settings.py

from pathlib import Path
import os


BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent
SECRET_KEY = 'django-insecure-u5pg-ef=-o0zzi16fk)xf1p8dsz7t$$vayc$3x1y(r01kb0rkg'

DEBUG = True

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
    "whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware",
    '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',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'mysite.urls'

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [],
        'APP_DIRS': True,
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                'django.template.context_processors.request',
                'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
            ],
        },
    },
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'mysite.wsgi.application'


DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3',
    }
}

AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator',
    },
]


LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'
TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'
USE_I18N = True
USE_L10N = True
USE_TZ = True


DEFAULT_AUTO_FIELD = 'django.db.models.BigAutoField'

STATICFILES_STORAGE = "whitenoise.storage.CompressedStaticFilesStorage"
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
WHITENOISE_MANIFEST_STRICT = False

Copy the image and make sure the image does exist:

ls staticfiles/images/hi.jpg 
staticfiles/images/hi.jpg

The url to load:
http://127.0.0.1:8000/static/images/hi.jpg

When DEBUG=True in the settings:

But when DEBUG=False,

Last failed try:

DEBUG = True
STATICFILES_STORAGE = "whitenoise.storage.CompressedStaticFilesStorage"
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = None if DEBUG else os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
WHITENOISE_MANIFEST_STRICT = False

.

Asked By: ar2015

||

Source

Answer 1

I always configure the STATIC_ROOT like this:

STATIC_ROOT = None if DEBUG else BASE_DIR / "staticfiles"

for more info on why and how does this work you could read this

Answered By: mehdy

Answer 2

In debug mode, Django takes over the handling of the static files, which means that by default django looks for static files in this folder my_app/static/my_app/example.jpg, if you had placed static files somewhere else you probably need to add it to STATICFILES_DIRS=[].

If you don’t have django.contrib.staticfiles in your installed apps, you may also want to try adding the below in your urls.py

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)

If you want whitenoise in development, you will need to runsever with -nostatic option turned on. If you don’t want to write -nostatic command everytime then just add whitenoise.runserver_nostatic to your INSTALLED_APPS.

refer the documentation for more information: http://whitenoise.evans.io/en/stable/django.html#using-whitenoise-in-development

Answered By: Art

Answer 3

The solution for me is as follows:

settings.py

if DEBUG:
    STATICFILES_DIRS=['staticfiles']
    STATIC_ROOT = None
else:
    STATICFILES_DIRS=[]
    STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')

Answered By: ar2015

Django whitenoise is fine for production but gives 404 for debug mode

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