Serving static media (JS/CSS) in Django from a static app

Question

I am trying to serve static media (such as JS and CSS files, not user uploaded content) on a Webfaction-hosted Django setup. I tried to implement what was suggested in the second answer here (http://community.webfaction.com/questions/1148/serving-django-static-media-from-within-the-application) but I can't seem to get it working.

My current set-up is as follows. The static media is stored in django/PROJECT/static. A symbolic static-only app called "static" is linked to django/PROJECT/static as well. The static app is added to the website under the directory /static. Static files in Django are accessed like "{{ STATIC_URL }}example.css".

settings.py:

STATIC_ROOT = 'home/USERNAME/webapps/django/PROJECT/static/'
STATIC_URL = 'http://USERNAME.webfactional.com/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = ( 'home/USERNAME/webapps/django/PROJECT/static/', )

Suffice to say, I can't get any of my static files to load. If I browse to USERNAME.webfactional.com/static/example.css I get a 404 Not Found.

How can I get static media working? Thanks for any help you can provide.

(One note: I am also planning on using user-uploaded content, hence why I am using STATIC_ instead of MEDIA_).

Accepted Answer

0

Just to confirm - are you certain that the path:

/home/USERNAME/webapps/django/PROJECT/static/example.css

exists on your server? Also, your STATIC_ROOT and STATICFILES_DIRS should be:

STATIC_ROOT = '/home/USERNAME/webapps/django/PROJECT/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = ( '/home/USERNAME/webapps/django/PROJECT/static/', )

as the leading slashes are necessary to designate a path as absolute, rather than relative.

Hope that helps!

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answered 22 Aug '11, 23:27

ryans ♦♦
5.0k●10●38●60
accept rate: 43%

edited 22 Aug '11, 23:30

Doh. I recently changed my static media directory from "media" to "static" locally, commited in git and pushed up the server, but didn't realized I needed to re-add "static" before I commited... learning Git as well. Thanks for the help! The leading slashes were there I just forgot them when I typed this. But yep, the PROJECT/static directory didn't even exist, so that was the problem. Thanks again.

(22 Aug '11, 23:42) albeit

Answer 2

0

I get an error when running collectstatic if I have the same line in STATIC_ROOT and STATICFILES_DIR.

ImproperlyConfigured: The STATICFILES_DIR setting should not contain the STATIC_ROOT setting.

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answered 26 Jul '13, 16:58

payetti
1
accept rate: 0%

@payetti : I believe that the above accepted answer to this question above is incorrect (although it may have been correct when it was originally posted in 2011.

STATIC_ROOT is the location to which the files in your various STATICFILES_DIRS directories are collected, so you shouldn't need to have the same location in both of them. STATIC_ROOT should be the directory of your static application, and STATICFILES_DIRS should contain directories that contain static assets that aren't tied to a particular Django app.

(26 Jul '13, 17:05) seanf

That makes sense. Things are finally up an running. Thanks Sean.

(26 Jul '13, 20:27) payetti

Serving static media (JS/CSS) in Django from a static app

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