Django 500 Error when DEBUG=FALSE, but only on some pages

Question

I am stuck. When I set my DEBUG=False , I get a 500 error, but only when I click the tab going to another app on the navbar of my index.html .

Here is my settings.py:

"""
Django settings for Tanta project.

Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 1.10.6.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/settings/
"""

import os

# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
TEMPLATE_dir=os.path.join(BASE_DIR,"templates")
STATIC_DIR=os.path.join(BASE_DIR,"static")
MEDIA_DIR=os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'media')
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage'
COMMUNITY_DIR=os.path.join(BASE_DIR,"community/templates/community")
WALLET_DIR=os.path.join(BASE_DIR,"wallet/templates/wallet")
WALLET_STATIC=os.path.join(BASE_DIR,"wallet/static")

# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/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 = False
# CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE=True
# SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE=True
# SECURE_HSTS_SECONDS=30
# SECURE_CONTENT_TYPE_NOSNIFF=True
# SECURE_BROWSER_XSS_FILTER=True
# X_FRAME_OPTIONS='DENY'
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ["get-onyx.herokuapp.com",'localhost']

# CELERY STUFF
CELERY_BROKER_URL = 'redis://localhost:6379'
CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND = 'redis://localhost:6379'
CELERY_ACCEPT_CONTENT = ['application/json']
CELERY_TASK_SERIALIZER = 'json'
CELERY_RESULT_SERIALIZER = 'json'
CELERY_TIMEZONE = 'Africa/Nairobi'



# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'home_page',
    'dashboard',
    'community',
    'wallet',
    'actstream',
    'django_celery_results'
]

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

ACTSTREAM_SETTINGS ={
    'MANAGER': 'actstream.managers.ActionManager',
    'FETCH_RELATIONS': True,
    'USE_PREFETCH': True,
    'USE_JSONFIELD': False,
    'GFK_FETCH_DEPTH': 1,
}
ACTSTREAM_ACTION_MODELS=['auth.User']
ROOT_URLCONF = 'Tanta.urls'

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [TEMPLATE_dir, COMMUNITY_DIR, WALLET_DIR,],
        '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 = 'Tanta.wsgi.application'


# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/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/1.10/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators
PASSWORD_HASHERS = [
    'django.contrib.auth.hashers.Argon2PasswordHasher',
    'django.contrib.auth.hashers.BCryptSHA256PasswordHasher',
    'django.contrib.auth.hashers.BCryptPasswordHasher',
    'django.contrib.auth.hashers.PBKDF2PasswordHasher',
    'django.contrib.auth.hashers.PBKDF2SHA1PasswordHasher',
]

AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator',
        'OPTIONS':{'min_length':6}
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator',
    },
    {
        'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator',
    },
]


# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True


# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/howto/static-files/
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS=[

      STATIC_DIR, WALLET_STATIC,
]
MEDIA_ROOT=MEDIA_DIR
MEDIA_URL='/media/'
LOGIN_URL='home_page/sign_in/'

Here is my index.html link that takes me to the error page:

<li><a class= 'navbar-link' href="{% url 'wallet:wallet_summary' %}">Wallet</a></li>

Here are the patterns in urls.py that call the views:

urlpatterns=[
    url(r'^$',views.wallet_summary,name="wallet_summary"),
    url(r'^transfer/$',views.transfer,name='transfer'),
    url(r'^info/$',views.info,name='info'),
    url(r'^activity/$',views.RecentActivityView.as_view(),name='activity')

]

The views.py snippet that should render the page:

def wallet_summary(request):
    return render(request,'wallet/wallet_summary.html',)

My directory tree to get to the templates looks like this:

Tanta (BASE_DIR)
|
|
wallet
|
|--------->templates
|---------------------->wallet
|----------------------------------->wallet_summary.html

The index.html page renders perfectly fine, but when I click the navbar link to go to wallet_summary.html I get the 500 error.

Answer 1

I added this to my settings.py file to trace the error to the console:

LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'filters': {
        'require_debug_false': {
            '()': 'django.utils.log.RequireDebugFalse'
        }
    },

    'handlers': {
        'mail_admins': {
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'filters': ['require_debug_false'],
            'class': 'django.utils.log.AdminEmailHandler'
        },
     'console':{
            'level': 'DEBUG',
            'class': 'logging.StreamHandler',
        },
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django.request': {
            'handlers': ['console'],
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'propagate': True,
        },
    }
}

That told me that I had a missing css file that was causing the error. I ran python manage.py collectstatic and made sure that all my static files were where I was telling Django they were. This allowed the template to be rendered and it now works!