Django Admin loading without css

Question

I had created a new Django app, and I noticed it's admin page was loading without css. I set the STATIC_URL and the STATIC_ROOT in settings.py according to this solution, but it still does not work.

After some digging, I found this error when I open Chrome Dev Tools on Admin Page

[my_web_page] Refused to apply style from 'http://[my_web_page]/static/admin/css/base.css' because its MIME type ('text/html') is not a supported stylesheet MIME type, and strict MIME checking is enabled.

[my_web_page] Refused to apply style from 'http://[my_web_page]/static/admin/css/responsive.css' because its MIME type ('text/html') is not a supported stylesheet MIME type, and strict MIME checking is enabled.

[my_web_page] Refused to apply style from 'http://[my_web_page]/static/admin/css/login.css' because its MIME type ('text/html') is not a supported stylesheet MIME type, and strict MIME checking is enabled.

[my_web_page] Refused to apply style from 'http://[my_web_page]/static/admin/css/responsive.css' because its MIME type ('text/html') is not a supported stylesheet MIME type, and strict MIME checking is enabled.

[my_web_page]/:1 Refused to apply style from 'http://[my_web_page]/static/admin/css/login.css' because its MIME type ('text/html') is not a supported stylesheet MIME type, and strict MIME checking is enabled.

[my_web_page]/:1 Refused to apply style from 'http://[my_web_page]/static/admin/css/base.css' because its MIME type ('text/html') is not a supported stylesheet MIME type, and strict MIME checking is enabled. 

I suppose that the app is finding my admin css, but it is refusing to apply the style.

I tried adding

import mimetypes

mimetypes.add_type("text/css", ".css", True)

to my settings.py as I had seen this solution somewhere, but to no avail.

Thank you for your time.

EDIT: here is my settings.py

"""
Django settings for mysite project.

Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 3.0.8.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/settings/
"""

import os
import mimetypes


# A Bug is was encountering
mimetypes.add_type("text/css", ".css", True)
# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))


# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/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

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']


# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'students_app.apps.StudentsAppConfig',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

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',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'mysite.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 = 'mysite.wsgi.application'


# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/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/3.0/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/3.0/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/3.0/howto/static-files/

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

EDIT 2: I am using pythonanywhere's, maybe that has something to do?

Answer 1

If the Django admin page is rendered without style, you probably set DEBUG=False in your settings.py.

With DEBUG=False Django won't handle static files anymore. Check Serving the files box. here

Use debug=True in production isn't recommended.

An amazing way to handle static files is whitenoise

Answer 2

The problem was that when I was using Pythonanywhere, I wasn't using python manage.py runserver command because my server was being hosted by pythonanywhere. I didn't know that with DEBUG=TRUE , the runserver command actually serves static files. What I ended up doing was setting my static_root , static_url , and staticfiles_dirs to the correct values in settings.py and then running python manage.py collectstatic to compile all my static files into the right folder.

EDIT

I realize that my answer needs elaboration, so I am describing what I ended up setting my settings to.

For my STATIC_ROOT , I ended up setting it to BASE_DIR / "cdn_test" / "static" . I did this because when you deploy your project, you will end up hosting your static files on a server(a cdn) that will host and serve your static files*. In production, you will also store your media (images) and more in your cdn folder.

For my STATIC_URL , I just set it to /static/ . You can read more about it in the Django docs .

Finally, for my STATICFILES_DIRS , I set it to

STATICFILES_DIRS = [
  BASE_DIR / "static",
]`. 

This is because Django copies the files from this static folder into the cdn_test/static folder. Whatever is in the static folder is what you edit; the cdn_test . If you have any other folders where you have static files, you can add them to your STATICFILES_DIRS .

Now, whenever you make changes to your static files, you will run python manage.py collectstatic . This is not like development, where Django automatically serves your static files for you.

I hope all this makes sense because it gave me a fair bit of confusion initially when I was learning.

*Note that you have to create the cdn_test and the static dir inside it by yourself.