django doesn't serve user-uploaded files in production

Question

I deployed a website with django. it servs all static files but doesn't serve user-uploaded files. this is my settings.py and urls.py:

import os
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
DEBUG = False

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticroot')
STATICFILES_DIRS = [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static")]

MEDIA_URL = '/files/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'uploaded_files')

and the urls.py:

urlpatterns = [
url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),    
url(r'^$', Index.as_view(), name='index'),
] 

In the pages, it prints user-uploaded files addresses correctly, but doesn't show them anf when I click on the links, it shows me 404 page. I use last version of nginx that I took from nginx repositories. the version 1.12. is it related to django or webserver(nginx+ gunicorn)? and how can I solve the problem?

Update When I change the MEDIA_URL and DEBUG to True, for the first time it works and serves user-uploaded files, but if I refresh the page, then it doesn't work! what's the problem??

Answer 1

you must define in urls.py

from django.conf.urls import include, url
from django.conf.urls.static import static
from django.conf import settings
urlpatterns = [
           url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),    
           url(r'^$', Index.as_view(), name='index'),
         ]+static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

Answer 2

Thats because the static and media files are not served by django in production. Thats why it works when you make DEBUG = True,

What you need to do is to setup an alias for media files in your nginx config for your site, inside your server block just like static files, like this:

    location /files/ {
    autoindex on;
    alias /home/your/project/uploaded_files/;
    }

Also, dont forget to restart your nginx afterwards.