Collectstatic error while deploying Django app to Heroku

I'm trying to deploy a Django app to Heroku, it starts to build, download and installs everything, but that's what I get when it comes to collecting static files

$ python manage.py collectstatic --noinput
remote:        Traceback (most recent call last):
remote:          File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>
remote:            execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 338, in execute_from_command_line
remote:            utility.execute()
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 330, in execute
remote:            self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 390, in run_from_argv
remote:            self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 441, in execute
remote:            output = self.handle(*args, **options)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/management/commands/collectstatic.py", line 168, in handle
remote:            collected = self.collect()
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/management/commands/collectstatic.py", line 98, in collect
remote:            for path, storage in finder.list(self.ignore_patterns):
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/finders.py", line 112, in list
remote:            for path in utils.get_files(storage, ignore_patterns):
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/staticfiles/utils.py", line 28, in get_files
remote:            directories, files = storage.listdir(location)
remote:          File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/files/storage.py", line 300, in listdir
remote:            for entry in os.listdir(path):
remote:        OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/app/blogproject/static'
remote: 
remote:  !     Error while running '$ python manage.py collectstatic --noinput'.
remote:        See traceback above for details.
remote: 
remote:        You may need to update application code to resolve this error.
remote:        Or, you can disable collectstatic for this application:
remote: 
remote:           $ heroku config:set DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC=1
remote: 
remote:        https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/django-assets
remote: 
remote:  !     Push rejected, failed to compile Python app
remote: 
remote: Verifying deploy...
remote: 
remote: !   Push rejected to pin-a-voyage.

This is the whole settings.py file

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

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))
PROJECT_ROOT = 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 = '*********************'

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


# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'blog',
    'custom_user',
    'django_markdown',
    'parsley',
)

#### AUTH ###

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'custom_user.CustomUser'

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    'custom_user.backends.CustomUserAuth',
    'django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend',
    # 'django.contrib.auth.backends.RemoteUserBackend',
)

#############

#### EMAIL ###

EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend'
EMAIL_HOST = 'smtp.gmail.com'
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = '***' #my gmail password
EMAIL_HOST_USER = '[email protected]' #my gmail username
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = '[email protected]'
SERVER_EMAIL = '[email protected]'
EMAIL_PORT = 587
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = EMAIL_HOST_USER

##############

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 = 'blogproject.urls'

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [],
        '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 = 'blogproject.wsgi.application'


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

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
        'NAME': 'blogproject',
        'USER': '***',
        'PASSWORD': '***',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}


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

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True


# Update database configuration with $DATABASE_URL.
db_from_env = dj_database_url.config(conn_max_age=500)
DATABASES['default'].update(db_from_env)

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

# Allow all host headers
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/howto/static-files/

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Extra places for collectstatic to find static files.
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'static'),
)

# Simplified static file serving.
# https://warehouse.python.org/project/whitenoise/
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'

This is the structure of the project

blog-project -- blog -- migrations
                     -- static
                     -- templates
             -- blogproject
             -- blogprojectenv
             -- custom_user
             -- media
             -- .git

Any thoughts?


I just updated to Django 1.10 today and had the exact same problem. Your static settings are identical to mine as well.

This worked for me, run the following commands:

  1. disable the collectstatic during a deploy

    heroku config:set DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC=1

  2. deploy

    git push heroku master

  3. run migrations (django 1.10 added at least one)

    heroku run python manage.py migrate

  4. run collectstatic using bower

    heroku run 'bower install --config.interactive=false;grunt prep;python manage.py collectstatic --noinput'

  5. enable collecstatic for future deploys

    heroku config:unset DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC

  6. try it on your own (optional)

    heroku run python manage.py collectstatic

future deploys should work as normal from now on


You have STATICFILES_DIRS configured to expect a static directory in the same directory as your settings.py file, so make sure it's there not somewhere else.

Also, do you have any files in that static directory? If you don't then git won't track it and so although it exists locally it won't exist in git. The usual solution to this is to create an empty file called .keep in the directory which will ensure that git tracks it. But once you have some static files in this directory then it won't be a problem anymore.