Develop Reference

Media files not displaying when DEBUG = False; what are the prerequisites to get them to show?

As I state in the title, when I set DEBUG = False in my project's settings file, the files from my media directory (the one the user uploads) don't display. The files from my static directory (the CSS and JavaScript files) load properly.
I looked at this answer, but I don't understand the prerequisites to get this to work. I am testing this on my local machine, where I only have Django and PostgreSQL installed. I don't have any Apache servers running, as far as I'm aware. I want to deploy my app on Amazon AWS, so I'd like to try out how it will look in production there before I deploy it to Amazon AWS.
Here are the relevant parts of my settings.py file:
DEBUG = False
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'media')
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
BASE_DIR / "static",
'/var/www/static/',
]

Willem Van Onsem is right on the media files. Since the static file is OK, for the workaround, you can add this line to your urls.py in the folder containing settings.py:
from django.conf.urls.static import static
from django.conf import settings
urlpatterns+=static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

django static url with mezzanine and templates

I've been stuck for awhile and I can't seem to get it. Before you say python manage.py collectstatic yes, I've done that.
Here's the issue: I am using one of mezzanine's solid layout. It doesn't seem like the mezzanine's files merge with the solid template layout.
On my front page, the CSS works, but if i head over to /admin page, then the css loads like this admin/static/mezzanine/some_css.css. Anything but the root main page loads the css file. So I'm guessing it's that path, but I've double checked my root path, it seems correct?
settings.py
PROJECT_ROOT = BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(PROJECT_APP_PATH)
# PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) also tried this
STATIC_URL ='static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'static')
# STATICFILES_DIRS = ( os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, "solid/static"), ) also tried this
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(os.path.realpath(PROJECT_ROOT), "solid/static"),
)
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
)
urls.py
urlpatterns +=[]+ static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)
simplfied file structure
app
---app
---solid
static
admin
css
mezzanine
templates
---static
admin
css
mezzanine
manage.py

You are missing an important thing named a slash in the begining. Put a slash in front.
STATIC_URL ='/static/'

Deploying to heroku changing DEBUG = False results in 500 error

Im using Django 1.9 and Python 3.4.3.
When changing DEBUG = False on my app I'm getting a 500 error on all pages of my app.
Note: The Django admin page results in a 500 error as well. Some
other posts reported not getting this error on the admin page and I am. I have also tried everything in this post
# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/howto/static-files/
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATICFILES_DIRS =(
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
)
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media')

It will be better if you add the ADMINS to the settings:
ADMINS = (('Your name', 'Your#EMAIL'),)
With that you'll receive a better report when the error occur that you can use to debug the error.
Hope it helps

You may have forgotten to include the whitenoice middleware in your settings.py MIDDLEWARE setting. Edit your settings.py file and add WhiteNoise to the MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES list, above all other middleware apart from Django’s SecurityMiddleware:
MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = [
# 'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware',
#...
]
This is NOT necessary when DEBUG=True but when DEBUG=False, suddenly you have an issue. Heroku unfortunately don't include this middleware addition in their documentation and their demo apps run in DEBUG=True, so it's tough to find the issue.
More information can be found in the whitenoise docs: http://whitenoise.evans.io/en/stable/django.html
Go through the step-by-step setup to see what you're missing. The Heroku docs tend to omit the middleware addition--which causes the bug--and perhaps there's something else missing for your application.

Whitenoise is looking for something it can't find. I had a problem with this as well and never got it working. Depending on how many static files you have, decide if you really need to cache them.
If you don't, just leave it out.
If you do, you need to find what it is whitenoise is trying to find and give it that. Maybe this helps: https://stackoverflow.com/a/28385055/1322179

How do I display an image on my webpage in Django?

I want to display an image on my website. I've been looking through the Django documentation and the other posts on stackoverflow, but I haven't gotten this to work.
I have an image name 'under-construction.jpg'. It lives in the /home/di/mysite/myapp/static/images directory.
I have a template like this:
<img src="{{ STATIC_URL }}images/under_construction.jpg" alt="Hi!" />
in my views.py I have this:
def under_construction(request):
return render(request, 'under_construction.html')
In my settings.py, I have this:
STATIC_ROOT = ''
# URL prefix for static files.
# Example: "http://media.lawrence.com/static/"
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
# Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
# Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
# Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
'/home/di/mysite/myapp/static',
'/home/di/mysite/myapp/static/images',
)
I executed ./manage.py collectstatic and it put a lot of files in /home/di/mysite/admin and /home/di/mysite/images. What do I have to do get my image to show up?

All you need to do is edit settings.py to be as the 4 following points and create a new folder (static) in the same folder settings.py is located
in the folder static you can create another folder (images) in it you can put the (under_constructioon.jpg)
STATICFILES_DIRS = (os.path.join( os.path.dirname( __file__ ), 'static' ),)
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',)
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = ''
after you're done with the prev. points you can write
<img src="{{ STATIC_URL }}images/under_construction.jpg" alt="Hi!" />

I have faced same problem displaying the static image. suffered a lot and spent a lot lot of time in this regard. So thought to share my settings.
settings.py
STATIC_ROOT = ''
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/static/admin/'
import os.path
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
"D:/temp/workspace/offeronline/media",
(os.path.join( os.path.dirname( __file__ ), 'static' )),
)
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
)
urls.py
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
# ... the rest of your URLconf here ... and at the end of the file add the following line
urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()
and finally added the following code to the template tag and it worked
<img src="{{ STATIC_URL }}images/i1.png" />

I have solved that problem like this.
STATIC_ROOT = '/path/to/project/static/'
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
)
Django will not directly get files directly even you do this. You need to link this static directory for each application of yours. Just go to the django app dir run following command..
cd /path/to/project/my_proj/my_app
ln -s /path/to/project/static/
This will work only in debug mod. You need to set DEBUG = true in settings.py file. This should work with django's development server.
Django won't serve any static file in production mod. You need to serve static files with web-server in production mod.
More information can be found here..

Django does support static files during development, You can use the django.views.static.serve() method in view to serve media files.
But using this method is inefficient and insecure for production setting.
for Production setting in Apache
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/howto/deployment/modpython/#serving-media-files

set STATIC_ROOT = /path/to/copy/files/to
have you added
urlpatterns += patterns('django.contrib.staticfiles.views', url(r'^static/(?P<path>.*)$', 'serve'),
or you can also do this
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
# ... the rest of your URLconf here ...
urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()
and of course try not to server static files through django it does have some overhead instead configure your http server to serve them, assuming you have an http server (nginx is quite good).

Serving static media during Django development: Why not MEDIA_ROOT?

I read this guide about serving static media with Django during development.
I noticed that MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT were not used in this. Why? What's the difference?
I tried doing it with MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT, and got weird results.

In a production situation you will want your media to be served from your front end web server (Apache, Nginx or the like) to avoid extra load on the Django/Python process. The MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT are usually used for this.
Running the built in Development server you will need to set the correct url in your url.py file - I normally use something like this:
from django.conf import settings
urlpatterns += patterns('',
(r'^media/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve', {'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT}),
)
Which picks up the MEDIA_ROOT from your settings file meaning that it works for development and live.

Straight from the comments in settings.py...
MEDIA_ROOT
The MEDIA_ROOT is the absolute path to the directory that holds media such as /home/media/media.lawrence.com/.
MEDIA_URL
The MEDIA_URL is the URL that handles the media served from MEDIA_ROOT. Make sure to use a trailing slash if there is a path component (optional in other cases). Examples: "http://media.lawrence.com", "http://example.com/media/".
So, to reword those... The MEDIA_ROOT is where the files live physically on your system, and the MEDIA_URL is where those files are mapped to. In development, this might not always be accessible, and in most cases your dev environment and your production environment are not the same, and it is something you're going to have to go back and change. The other thing is that it is NOT A GOOD PRACTICE when Django was designed NOT to serve static content for you.
If you're going to use this in development, I suggest you use the method of limiting it to DEBUG=True. Telling Django to serve static content from a temporary location while in development when the DEBUG is set to True is a much better and safer practice. You're NOT going to put your site into production with DEBUG on, right? Well, at least you shouldn't.
Here is how I implemented it:
settings.py:
STATIC_DOC_ROOT = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), 'site_media')
urls.py:
from django.conf import settings
## debug stuff to serve static media
if settings.DEBUG:
urlpatterns += patterns('',
(r'^site_media/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve',
{'document_root': settings.STATIC_DOC_ROOT}),
)
This way any project I'm working on has a site_media directory inside of it with all of the media necessary. In dev it is self-contained and I don't have to flip any bits in the settings except for DEBUG, which I would be doing anyways.

The Django docs recommend the following approach I've modified for my use case:
urlpatterns = [
# url patterns
]
from django.conf import settings
if settings.DEBUG:
from django.conf.urls.static import static
urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)
Note: the above assumes you've set your MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT correctly
... and here's the djangodocs linkslap.