Heroku can't find Django templates

Question

I'm getting a TemplateDoesNotExist error on Heroku when it looks for my html files. The files all sync up on the development server. The TEMPLATE_DIRS setting is set to:

TEMPLATE_DIRS = ['/Users/jonathanschen/Python/projects/skeleton/myportfolio/templates',]

But when trying to load the page the herokuapp page I get the following error: I think there's something very basic I'm missing here.

TemplateDoesNotExist at /
index.html
Request Method: GET
Request URL:    http://morning-coast-2859.herokuapp.com/
Django Version: 1.4.1
Exception Type: TemplateDoesNotExist
Exception Value:    
index.html
Exception Location: /app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/template/loader.py in find_template, line 138

Template-loader postmortem

Django tried loading these templates, in this order:
Using loader django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader:
/Users/jonathanschen/Python/projects/skeleton/myportfolio/templates/index.html (File does not exist)
Using loader django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader:
/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/templates/index.html (File does not exist)
/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/templates/index.html (File does not exist)

Answer 1

You'll need to update your TEMPLATE_DIRS setting to point to something Heroku can find - the path that you have it set to right now will work locally, but Heroku has no idea where /Users/jonathanschen/ is (because it doesn't have that folder). You might want to try making your TEMPLATE_DIRS setting use a relative path:

import os.path
PROJECT_DIR = os.path.dirname(__file__) # this is not Django setting.
TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(PROJECT_DIR, "templates"),
    # here you can add another templates directory if you wish.
)

(from http://www.djangofoo.com/35/template_dirs-project-folder )

In Django 1.8+, change the DIRS option in TEMPLATES instead:

# BASE_DIR should already be in settings
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "templates")],
        ...
    }
]