Django 404 with static files when caching enabled in production.

Hello,

For caching static files, I would suggest to try this way, for your /static location add the following:

    location /static/ {
        alias  /home/x/my_project/django_project/staticfiles/;  
        expires 7d;
    }

Hope that this helps! Regards, Bobby

The issue arises because the location ~* block is matching both static and media file requests, and since it comes after the /static/ and /media/ blocks, it overrides those specific configurations.

To fix this, you need to ensure that the location ~* block does not interfere with the /static/ and /media/ blocks. This can be achieved by ensuring more specific location blocks (like /static/ and /media/) are checked first, and only unmatched requests fall through to the ~* block.

Here’s the corrected configuration:

server {
    server_name _;

    root /home/x/my_project/django_project;

    access_log off;

    location /static/ {
        alias /home/x/my_project/django_project/staticfiles/;
        expires 7d;
        add_header Cache-Control "public";
    }

    location /media/ {
        alias /home/x/my_project/django_project/media/;
        expires 7d;
        add_header Cache-Control "public";
    }

    location / {
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        add_header P3P 'CP="ALL DSP COR PSAa PSDa OUR NOR ONL UNI COM NAV"';
    }

    # Generic cache location for other static file types
    location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|ico|css|js|pdf)$ {
        expires 7d;
        add_header Cache-Control "public";
    }
}

Key Changes:

1. Moved caching rules directly into /static/ and /media/ blocks:

   • Ensures these specific paths handle caching explicitly.
   • Prevents interference from the ~* block.

2. Preserved the location ~* block:

   • It handles caching for other static file types not covered by /static/ and /media/.

3. Added Cache-Control headers:

   • Encourages browsers to cache the resources effectively.

This configuration ensures that /static/ and /media/ files are served correctly while applying caching to relevant file types without overriding the more specific blocks.