Django - Changes to HTML Templates Not Working

August 27, 2017 3.8k views
Django Ubuntu 16.04
djankowski3
By:
djankowski3

So I am SURE that I am missing a basic step here but it's driving me nuts.

I followed this tutorial to setup my server:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-django-with-postgres-nginx-and-gunicorn-on-ubuntu-16-04

Everything is working as intended, woohoo! Except... now I am making changes to my templates, meaning primarily the HTML parts. Just editing text here and there that I want to update.

Unfortunately, after I do so, and I upload the files via SFTP (FileZilla) to the app directory's template folder, it does not reflect the changes on the site. I've restarted nginx, confirmed the correct files are going to the correct folder (I think?), tried collectstatic again (which does not update anything, though I am only changing the html so I wouldn't expect it to), and cleared my local cache (tried incognito, etc.).

Am I just missing something regarding how to make those changes reflect on the actual website? I go to my domain (which works to connect to my nginx server) but it just shows the original base.html page that I first uploaded. I can't get any changes to take place when I visit the site.

Thoughts??

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5 Answers
djankowski3 August 27, 2017

I don't have any caching enabled in Django that I know of:

TEMPLATES = [
{
'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
'DIRS': [],
'APP_DIRS': True,

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Aprexer August 28, 2017

You need to change your permissions after you've uploaded a file over SFTP.

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djankowski3 August 28, 2017

That's a great bit of advice to try, but I'm not sure which permissions you're talking about nor which command to do that.

Do I have to do it after every upload?

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  • Aprexer August 28, 2017

    Yes if you're using SFTP.
    You can either use the permission manager in filezilla or ssh in and change file ownership.

djankowski3 August 28, 2017

What's the better alternative? Push/pull with Git?

update:

This is bizarre! I changed the permissions on the file, and now everytime you refresh the site, it alternates between the good one, and the old one. Like it's fighting with another file to be displayed??

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ronalara October 12, 2017

Just refresh your Gunicorn server like so:

sudo service gunicorn restart

Then refresh your page on the browser and you will see the changes.

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