# Serving Media - when Debug = False

**URL:** <https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862>\
**Category:** Deployment\
**Created:** [July 16, 2025, 11:58pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862 "2025-07-16T23:58:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rye-dotcom](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/rye-dotcom/32/29198_2.png) [@rye-dotcom](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/rye-dotcom)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 11:58pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/1 "2025-07-16T23:58:24Z")

</div>

I’m having trouble displaying images in all of my django projects source  
after taking debug out. I’ve taken a considerable amount of effort to store the images correctly and in a predictable manner but I’m getting NO images when I change debug = False!

This is the project [here](https://sa.wentcloud.com/the-media-upload-doesnt-work/)  
You can see that when you interact with the media a 404 error occurs. It would not occur if debug = True, this only happens when debug = False.

[Managing files | Django documentation | Django](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/topics/files/) is the reference I’ve been using to troubleshoot this problem, and from what I see in the code the logic is all correct. It’s the serving of them after debug is out that I’m unsure of.

The service is running

Media is not displaying:  
Media uploads and stores to the correct folders

The directory structure of the server that the django application is running on: the hashes are present to convey the depth of the structure

`/srv/www/`  
`code`  
`html`  
`-static`  
`--css`  
`--js`  
`-media`  
`--images`  
`--original_images`  
`logs`

project settings

```python
STATICFILES_FINDERS = [
    "django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder",
]

STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    os.path.join(PROJECT_DIR, "static"),
]

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(BASE_DIR), 'html', 'stati
c')
#STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static")
STATIC_URL = "/static/"

MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(BASE_DIR), 'html', 'media'
)

#MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "media")
MEDIA_URL = "/media/"

```

middleware

```python
MIDDLEWARE = [
    "django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
    "wagtail.contrib.redirects.middleware.RedirectMiddleware",
    "whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware",
]

```

nginx (external to host)

```bash
    location /media {
	autoindex on;
        alias html/media/;
    }

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 12:09am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/2 "2025-07-17T00:09:27Z")

</div>

Welcome @rye-dotcom !

In a production environment, Django shouldn’t be used at all to retrieve either static _or_ media files.

Your nginx configuration should serve the media directory directly.

Also, both STATIC\_ROOT and MEDIA\_ROOT should be completely outside your project directory. They should be “nginx-friendly” directories, such as under `/var/www/`.

Similarly, your code should **not** be anywhere in that same directory tree. You do _not_ want nginx to have direct access to your code.

There have been numerous topics here about deployment of static and media files - see [Django Static Files issue with Nginx](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/django-static-files-issue-with-nginx/31005) as one example. (There are many others you could find.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rye-dotcom](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/rye-dotcom/32/29198_2.png) [@rye-dotcom](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/rye-dotcom)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 12:20am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/3 "2025-07-17T00:20:15Z")

</div>

Hi Ken, Thank you.

I have considerations about nginx friendly serving and the files are collected to ‘srv/www/html/’

The directories are separated with the www-data group has access to ‘srv/www/html/media’ and not access to the code.

Maybe the misconfiguration is in this detail?

```bash
    root /srv/www/html;

    location /media {
	autoindex on;
        alias html/media/;
    }

```

 ![Screenshot 2025-07-16 at 5.14.30 PM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/djangoproject/original/3X/6/2/6284340390d17b3d904f80be0f5d937a2bcfec68.png)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 12:30am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/4 "2025-07-17T00:30:48Z")

</div>

> [@rye-dotcom](#):
>
> ```auto
> root /srv/www/html;
> 
> location /media {
> autoindex on;
> alias html/media/;
> 
> ```

I’d check the nginx error log to see what nginx is trying to do and why it’s failing.

This looks to me like a request for `/media/some_file` would be looked for in `/srv/www/html/html/media/some_file`.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kubz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kubz/32/20312_2.png) [@Kubz](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/Kubz)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 4:58pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/5 "2025-07-17T16:58:55Z")

</div>

my staticfiles config for nginx is the following

```auto
location /static/ {
        root /home/ubuntu/project_name/frontend/build; #absolute url with pwd
        expires 365d;
        access_log off;
        add_header Cache-control "public, no-transform";
        }

```

so id think that it would be work as the same with the media folder url. dont forget run nginx -t on save to test your configuration and know i you have any issue

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rye-dotcom](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/rye-dotcom/32/29198_2.png) [@rye-dotcom](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/rye-dotcom)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 2:24pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/6 "2025-07-19T14:24:52Z")

</div>

Still in to the same sort of issue

So I’m not 100% sure where I need to resolve it or even how to troubleshoot the issue, I tried deploying the code again on a different host just for isolation and the SAME problem occured.

|

in debug - │2025/07/19 14:05:12 [debug] 78932#78932: \*35488 http2 header: “accept-encoding: gzip, deflate, br” │  
│2025/07/19 14:05:12 [debug] 78932#78932: \*35488 http2 request line: "GET /media/images/IMG\_1577.max-165x│  
│2025/07/19 14:05:12 [debug] 78932#78932: \*35488 generic phase: 0 │  
│2025/07/19 14:05:12 [debug] 78932#78932: \*35488 rewrite phase: 1 │  
│2025/07/19 14:05:12 [debug] 78932#78932: \*35488 test location: “/” │  
│2025/07/19 14:05:12 [debug] 78932#78932: \*35488 test location: “media/” │  
│2025/07/19 14:05:12 [debug] 78932#78932: \*35488 using configuration “/media/”

 ![Screenshot 2025-07-19 at 7.23.29 AM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/djangoproject/original/3X/7/2/7291004184e4faadf60e5c3dec801b1ed17703c6.jpeg)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2025, 2:30pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/7 "2025-07-19T14:30:58Z")

</div>

Two things -

1. Please don’t post images of textual information. Not only is difficult to read, but it’s also incomplete, as there is text cut off on the left side of the first section. Copy/paste the relevent portions of the log into your post, marked as preformatted text.

2. Keep in mind that nginx needs to be able to search through all directories _above_ the directory containing the file itself. It can’t just “jump” into the `media` directory without being able to locate it within `/srv/www/html`. (That’s just one of the reasons why I recommend getting the static and media directories completely out of the project’s directory structure.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rye-dotcom](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/rye-dotcom/32/29198_2.png) [@rye-dotcom](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/rye-dotcom)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/8 "2025-07-25T20:24:48Z")

</div>

Hi Ken,  
I read a few other [documents](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/setting-up-media-files-in-production-with-nginx/18812) and still can’t come to a resolution.

What is the method that I should structure the static and media storage. S3 style storage is not appropriate for this project - it has to be on the disk

```auto
"""
Django settings for mysite project.

Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 5.2.4.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/ref/settings/
"""

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

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

# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/howto/deployment/checklist/

# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "home",
    "blog",
    "base",
    "search",
    "portfolio",
    "wagtail.contrib.forms",
    "wagtail.contrib.settings",
    "wagtail.contrib.redirects",
    "wagtail.embeds",
    "wagtail.sites",
    "wagtail.users",
    "wagtail.snippets",
    "wagtail.documents",
    "wagtail.images",
    "wagtail.search",
    "wagtail.admin",
    "wagtail",
    "modelcluster",
    "taggit",
    "django_filters",
    "django.contrib.admin",
    "django.contrib.auth",
    "django.contrib.contenttypes",
    "django.contrib.sessions",
    "django.contrib.messages",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles",
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    "django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
    "wagtail.contrib.redirects.middleware.RedirectMiddleware",
]

ROOT_URLCONF = "mysite.urls"

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        "BACKEND": "django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates",
        "DIRS": [
            os.path.join(PROJECT_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",
                "wagtail.contrib.settings.context_processors.settings",
            ],
        },
    },
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = "mysite.wsgi.application"

# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    "default": {
        "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.sqlite3",
        "NAME": os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "db.sqlite3"),
    }
}

# Password validation
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators

AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
    {
        "NAME": "django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator",
    },
    {
        "NAME": "django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator",
    },
    {
        "NAME": "django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator",
    },
    {
        "NAME": "django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator",
    },
]

# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = "en-us"

TIME_ZONE = "UTC"

USE_I18N = True

USE_TZ = True

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/howto/static-files/

STATICFILES_FINDERS = [
    "django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder",
]

STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    os.path.join(PROJECT_DIR, "static"),
]

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static")
STATIC_URL = "/static/"

MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "media")
MEDIA_URL = "/media/"

# Default storage settings, with the staticfiles storage updated.
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/ref/settings/#std-setting-STORAGES
STORAGES = {
    "default": {
        "BACKEND": "django.core.files.storage.FileSystemStorage",
    },
    # ManifestStaticFilesStorage is recommended in production, to prevent
    # outdated JavaScript / CSS assets being served from cache
    # (e.g. after a Wagtail upgrade).
    # See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/ref/contrib/staticfiles/#manifeststaticfilesstorage
    "staticfiles": {
        "BACKEND": "django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage",
    },
}

# Django sets a maximum of 1000 fields per form by default, but particularly complex page models
# can exceed this limit within Wagtail's page editor.
DATA_UPLOAD_MAX_NUMBER_FIELDS = 10_000

# Wagtail settings

WAGTAIL_SITE_NAME = "mysite"

# Search
# https://docs.wagtail.org/en/stable/topics/search/backends.html
WAGTAILSEARCH_BACKENDS = {
    "default": {
        "BACKEND": "wagtail.search.backends.database",
    }
}

# Base URL to use when referring to full URLs within the Wagtail admin backend -
# e.g. in notification emails. Don't include '/admin' or a trailing slash
WAGTAILADMIN_BASE_URL = "http://example.com"

# Allowed file extensions for documents in the document library.
# This can be omitted to allow all files, but note that this may present a security risk
# if untrusted users are allowed to upload files -
# see https://docs.wagtail.org/en/stable/advanced_topics/deploying.html#user-uploaded-files
WAGTAILDOCS_EXTENSIONS = [
    "csv",
    "docx",
    "key",
    "odt",
    "pdf",
    "pptx",
    "rtf",
    "txt",
    "xlsx",
    "zip",
]

```

There is a load balancer NGINX which handles connection to the ‘outside’ and an application ‘nginx’ that handles serving the media.

Do I need new directories on the application host?

the directory structure is

```auto
> lr /srv/www/
.venv/ code/ html/ logs/ server.sock

```

So as far as I can tell I have had code in a separate directory.

```auto
> ls /srv/www/code/
 Dockerfile manage.py yq
 base mysite 'ystemctl enable gunicornaqqq'
 blog portfolio 'ystemctl start gunicorn.socket'
 db.sqlite3 requirements.txt
 home search

```

Dir path for html

```auto
> ls /srv/www/html/
media static

```

Thanks for your help.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KenWhitesell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/kenwhitesell/32/280_2.png) [@KenWhitesell](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/KenWhitesell)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 12:29am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/9 "2025-07-26T00:29:12Z")

</div>

You haven’t really provided a lot of specifics regarding your deployment environment, such as the UIDs involved (what’s running these processes? what’s doing the deployment and `collectstatic`?), or the specific nginx configuration elements for your static and media files, so the best I can do at the moment is outline the general recommendations.

1. Set `STATIC_ROOT=/var/www/html/project_name/static`
2. Set `MEDIA_ROOT=/var/www/html/project_name/media`
3. Ensure that this complete directory structure can be read by group `www-data`.
4. Set the group sticky bit on the `static` and `media` directories.
5. Define your nginx paragraphs to use those directories as the aliases for your `STATIC_URL` and `MEDIA_URL` settings.
6. Run `collectstatic` to copy the static files into `/var/www/html/project_name/static`. Verify that all files & directories are group `www-data`

Should there be any problems with accessing static files after this, check your nginx logs to get the specific errors being logged for those requests.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mayankkumargupta1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/mayankkumargupta1/32/29183_2.png) [@mayankkumargupta1](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/mayankkumargupta1)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 6:14am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/10 "2025-07-26T06:14:13Z")

</div>

Use Django White Noise. I hope this helps.

```auto
pip install whitenoise

```

In development

```auto
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    "whitenoise.runserver_nostatic",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles",
    # ...
]

```

in production

```auto

MIDDLEWARE = [
    # ...
    "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
    "whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware",
    # ...
]

```

```auto
STORAGES = {
    # ...
    "staticfiles": {
        "BACKEND": "whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage",
    },
}

```

Here Is the documentation, Do let us know if it worked.

> **[Using WhiteNoise with Django - WhiteNoise 6.9.0 documentation](https://whitenoise.readthedocs.io/en/stable/django.html)**

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rye-dotcom](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/rye-dotcom/32/29198_2.png) [@rye-dotcom](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/rye-dotcom)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 3:49am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/11 "2025-08-06T03:49:22Z")

</div>

This is not the problem. Whitenoise is a consideration.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rye-dotcom](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/rye-dotcom/32/29198_2.png) [@rye-dotcom](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/rye-dotcom)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 3:52am UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/serving-media-when-debug-false/41862/12 "2025-08-06T03:52:21Z")

</div>

### Root Cause:

- Gunicorn socket (`gunicorn.sock`) was already in use while `gunicorn.socket` was also being enabled, leading to conflicts.

- Nginx on the border gateway was not properly configured to forward requests to the internal application server via TCP.

- Static and media files were not being correctly proxied, leading to missing images despite CSS loading.

### Resolution Steps:

1. **Disabled Conflicting Socket:**

2. **Verified Gunicorn Service:**

3. **Border Gateway Nginx Configuration:**

4. **Internal Host Configuration:**

5. **Verified Fix:**

### Outcome:

- Django application is now accessible via the border gateway using HTTPS.

- All static files, including images and stylesheets, are served correctly.

- Systemd services are stable and conflict-free.