I need help with static files not loading on cPanel.

Using Django Deployment
1

For the past 2 days I have been trying to get apache to serve the static files but it returns an error

I am using cPanel shared hosting. I do not have access to console only run script button.

error from console from google chrome:

style.css was blocked due to MIME type (“text/html”) mismatch (X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff).

Here are my settings:

I am redirecting passanger_wsgi to wsgi.py in Univerproject(folder where settings.py is).

Settings.py in cPanel

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)

STATIC_URL = ‘/static/’

STATIC_ROOT = ‘/home/ (my user name)/public_html/staticfiles/’

STATICFILES_DIRS=[BASE_DIR / “static”]

MEDIA_URL = ‘/media/’

MEDIA_ROOT = ‘/home/ (my user name )/public_html/media/’

.htaccess in cPanel

Alias /static/ /home/(my user name )/public_html/staticfiles/

# Serve static files directly

<Directory “/home/(my user name )/public_html/staticfiles”>

Require all granted

Alias /media/ /home/(my user name )/public_html/media/

# Serve media files directly

<Directory “/home/(my user name )/public_html/media”>

Require all granted

# Protect the project folder

<Directory “/home/(my user name )/ (my domain as folder )”>

Require all granted

Files are in public_html/staticfiles I checked.

filestructure:

filestructure
filestructure1571×544 94.2 KB

logs:App 337097 output: [ pid=337097, time=2025-08-22 12:00:33,916 ]: Not Found: /static/css/style.css

2

his is a common issue with Django on cPanel. The problem is that Apache is serving your static files with the wrong MIME type (text/html instead of text/css). Here are several solutions to try:

Solution 1: Fix .htaccess Configuration

Solution 2: Add MIME Type Definitions

Solution 3: Check File Permissions

Solution 4: Verify Static File Collection

Solution 5: Alternative .htaccess Approach

Also Checks:

  1. Verify file paths: Make sure the paths in your Alias directives exactly match where your files are located.

  2. Clear browser cache: The error might be cached in your browser.

  3. Check file existence: Ensure the CSS files actually exist in the staticfiles directory.

  4. Test with direct URL: Try accessing the CSS file directly via URL to see if Apache serves it correctly.

3

Note: This is not the only cause for this issue. This error can also be caused by Django returning a 404 page when the request is being issued for the css file. In this case the root issue is that Django is attempting to serve the file instead of Apache.

4

Thank you for the list. The browser returns a 404 page. My guess is Apache doesn’t even find the files. Because there is no error type mismatch on the 404 page. However I do not see where in the path I have made a mistake. I double checked the files are there. I cleared the cache as well.

5

Is there any documentation I can read about how to test if this is the cause?

6

Look at the 404 page being returned. Is it the Apache page or the Django page? The origin of the page will tell you which process handled the request.

7

It is a the Django page. Also I removed urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT) from urls.py on the production server, but it still serves the Django 404 page.

8

This means that you don’t have Apache configured to serve your static urls from their proper directory.

9

Thank you KenWhitesell and iman-mohadesi

Found out the issue was cPanel shared hosting was set to not allow Apache to serve any files even in subdomains of Public_html. After help from the support team of the shared hosting I was able to get static files to load.