Django: static files returning 404 error

Question

I want to be able to load my static files on my local server, but when I request them, the browser returns 404 for every resource.

From what I can understand, STATIC_URL is the url in which my static files will be served. And STATICFILES_FINDERS specifies how my static files will be discovered. I set STATICFILES_DIRS to search for the static directory at the project root, but it doesn't seem to be be finding it.

On my settings.py,

# Python 2.7.5, Django 1.6

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

STATIC_URL = '/static/'

STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
   'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
   'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
)

STATICFILES_DIRS = (os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),)

This is my directory structure:

.
|-- myapp
   |-- settings.py
   |-- ...
   static
   |-- images
   |-- javascript
   |-- stylesheets

Mark Mikofski · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-28 17:04:00Z

1

Here are a couple of ideas:

You need a server for your static files. Are you using Apache HTTP server? The easiest way to serve your static files is to alias them in the httpd.conf file:
```
Alias /static/ /path/to/static/
<Directory /path/to/static>
Require all granted
</Directory>
```
You need to specify a STATIC_ROOT, which could be /path/to/your_project/static but then you probably want to put your current static files and folders somewhere else, because everything in STATIC_ROOT will be overwritten when you call manage.py collectstatic. I put all of my static files, such as Bootstrap, Tablesorter, images and icons in a folder called assets, then put assets in my STATICFILES_DIR list.
Use manage.py collectstatic to collect all static files and put them in STATIC_ROOT so that Apache can find them. Static files for the admin site will be automatically copied even if you do not add them to the list of STATICFILES_DIR.

Check out this post I wrote, which has several links to Django documentation on the topic.

edited Jul 28, 2014 at 17:04

answered Jul 26, 2014 at 4:25

Mark Mikofski

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2 Comments

Graham Dumpleton Over a year ago

The trailing slashes for the Alias directive should be balanced on the arguments when at a sub URL. That is use, 'Alias /static /path/to/static' and not 'Alias /static/ /path/to/static'. If they aren't, it can screw up how Apache maps URLs to the file system with the slash being dropped and the calculated path being wrong. This can result in either a Not Found or Forbidden HTTP error response depending on Apache configuration.

Mark Mikofski Over a year ago

Thanks @GrahamDumpleton! I have edited the answer to balance the trailing slashes in the URL and the path. This particular example is from the Django how-to guide for using Apache with mod_wsgi and the trailing slashes are correctly balanced as you indicated. Thanks again!

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