ImproperlyConfigured staticfiles

Question

I have deploy simple blog application on Heroku, it run on Django=1.8.4, and I'm having some issues whit static files.

When open mine application I see Application Error page, so I have try to debug it and find out that when I commit to Heroku it can't preform collectstatic on mine static folder. Everything else is working and Heroku is showing me that Build succeeded but can not preform

remote: -----> Preparing static assets
remote:        Collectstatic configuration error. To debug, run:
remote:        $ heroku run python bloggy_project/manage.py collectstatic --noinput

so Heroku want me to debug it. After I type

heroku run python bloggy_project/manage.py collectstatic --noinput

Error log showing:

Running python bloggy_project/manage.py collectstatic --noinput on greenbloggy... up, run.4682
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bloggy_project/manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 338, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 330, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 190, in fetch_command
    klass = load_command_class(app_name, subcommand)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 41, in load_command_class
    return module.Command()
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/management/commands/collectstatic.py", line 32, in __init__
    self.storage.path('')
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/storage.py", line 48, in path
    raise ImproperlyConfigured("You're using the staticfiles app "
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: You're using the staticfiles app without having set the STATIC_ROOT setting to a filesystem path.

Have tried to google for the answer, I'm very confused now because I have read bunch of posts about static files. Can someone show me what is wrong here so I can learn and understand something.

Mine settings.py:

"""
Django settings for bloggy_project project.

Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 1.8.4.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/ref/settings/
"""

# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
import os

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

# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/howto/deployment/checklist/

# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
SECRET_KEY = 'oi1+cyk&9g-n*nyiymkjzt6-es@!g7=edzpx+--rdsj4kw&4&3'

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = False

ALLOWED_HOSTS = []


# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # Local Apps
    'blog',
    # Third party apps
    'django_forms_bootstrap',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.SessionAuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'bloggy_project.urls'

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')],
        '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 = 'bloggy_project.wsgi.application'


# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
        'NAME': '',
        'USER': '',
        'PASSWORD': '',
        'HOST': '',
        'POST': '',
    }
}


# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'Europe/Belgrade'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True


# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/howto/static-files/
# Static asset configuration
# Allow all host hosts/domain names for this site
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']

# Srse database configuration from $DATABASE_URL
import dj_database_url

DATABASES = {'default': dj_database_url.config()}

# Honor the 'X-Forwarded-Proto' header for request.is_secure()
SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO', 'https')

# try to load development_settings.py if exists
try:
    from .development_settings import *
except Exception, e:
    pass

import os
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media')
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
# STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

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

UPDATE:

When I comment out STATIC_ROOT, and do

heroku run python bloggy_project/manage.py collectstatic --noinput

Error log now show, and this part is rely confusing, why this error now, if I need to put STATIC_ROOT in mine settings.py?

New Error Log:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bloggy_project/manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 338, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 330, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 393, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 444, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/management/commands/collectstatic.py", line 168, in handle
    collected = self.collect()
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/management/commands/collectstatic.py", line 97, in collect
    for finder in get_finders():
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/finders.py", line 264, in get_finders
    yield get_finder(finder_path)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/utils/lru_cache.py", line 101, in wrapper
    result = user_function(*args, **kwds)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/finders.py", line 277, in get_finder
    return Finder()
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/finders.py", line 66, in __init__
    "The STATICFILES_DIRS setting should "
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: The STATICFILES_DIRS setting should not contain the STATIC_ROOT setting

Answer 1

You are getting this error because your settings variables STATIC_ROOT and STATICFILES_DIRS contain exactly the same path (os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static')). This is an invalid configuration.

STATIC_ROOT is the absolute path to where you want Django to put the static files that are collected using collectstatic. Your web server will serve static files from this directory.

STATICFILES_DIRS is a list of directories where you want collectstatic to look when collecting the static files. If cannot include STATIC_ROOT or any subdirectory of it.

Try removing the STATICFILES_DIRS setting and see if that works. If you have put static files in some non-standard location then change the setting to include that location.