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STATICFILES_DIRS setting makes my admin widget override disappear

I'm having trouble understanding how static files are handled in Django. I've read through the official Django documentation as well as multiple threads, including this wonderful one here:
Differences between STATICFILES_DIR, STATIC_ROOT and MEDIA_ROOT
Most people define the STATICFILES_DIRS list as a list of paths where django will search for additional static files aside from the app's static folder.
I understand that, but what does this have to do with the formfields I'm overriding in my admin.py?
I have overridden the default ManyToMany form to the FilteredSelectMultiple widget in a few of my admin models like so:
from django.contrib.admin.widgets import FilteredSelectMultiple
formfield_overrides = {
models.ManyToManyField: {'widget': FilteredSelectMultiple("User Names", is_stacked=False)}
}
This works fine and produces the widget override I wanted: Functional Widget Screenshot
However, when I define STATICFILES_DIRS in settings.py to include my root static folder like so:
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static/'),
)
It breaks my override and defaults back to the original ManyToMany field form:
Broken Widget Screenshot
We do not have STATIC_ROOT defined in our settings.py as we don't plan on using the collect static feature. We plan on keeping/referencing our static files at the root static folder. Also in our settings.py we have:
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
I don't understand how these settings for dealing with static files are interfering with the formfield_override above. I would appreciate some insight on this, so that I could find a way to approach this issue.
Thank you!

I figured out the cause of my issue. I missed this portion in the Django documentation that explains STATICFILES_FINDERS: STATICFILES_STORAGE Documentation
It turns out that my production server was finding the static files in my outer root folder first, which were not up to date. This explains why I wasn't seeing my changes. I'm going to reconfigure the way I handle static files to ensure that the outer root static folder that my production server looks always has the latest static files via the collectstatic feature

Minimal developer setup of sorl-thumbnail with Django 1.7

My initial goal is to use sorl-thumbnail in the most basic way to cache on my filesystem cropped images that are downloaded from external sites. I don't care about performance at the moment and don't want to yet setup extra systems (memcachedb, redis). I am using the development runserver.
On the one hand the docs make it sound like I must use one of these two options. I feel like other places I have read that it can be setup to not require these KV stores. As one evidence for that, I see the setting sorl.thumbnail.kvstores.dbm_kvstore.KVStore in the reference docs (which says A simple Key Value Store has no dependencies outside the standard Python library and uses the DBM modules to store the data.), but I cannot get that to work either (see below).
Using Python 2.7.5, Django 1.7.1, Pillow 2.6.1, and sorl-thumbnail 12.1c.
Added sorl.thumbnail as part of my INSTALLED_APPS.
Added to settings.py:
THUMBNAIL_DEBUG = True
import logging
from sorl.thumbnail.log import ThumbnailLogHandler
handler = ThumbnailLogHandler()
handler.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
logging.getLogger('sorl.thumbnail').addHandler(handler)
I see no other logging in my web server console despite this.
Attempted to sync my db:
$ ./manage.py migrate thumbnail
Operations to perform:
Apply all migrations: thumbnail
Running migrations:
Applying thumbnail.0001_initial... FAKED
No tables appear to be added to my database.
At this point, I've added to my template the load directive and the following snippet, where item.image_url is a models.URLField which works fine apart from thumbnail.
{% thumbnail item.image_url "235x200" crop="center" as im %}
<img src="{{ im.url }}">
{% empty %}
<p>No image</p>
{% endthumbnail %}
When I try to view the page, I see broken image links:
http://127.0.0.1:8001/<myapp>/cache/cf/43/cf43126f1f961593650b5df4791e329f.jpg 404 (NOT FOUND)
My MEDIA_URL is not set, though I tried playing with that to no avail.
I further tried putting into the settings: THUMBNAIL_KVSTORE = 'sorl.thumbnail.kvstores.dbm_kvstore.KVStore' but this gives the DJANGO error in the browser: Error importing module sorl.thumbnail.kvstores.dbm_kvstore: "No module named dbm_kvstore".
Can I configure it in this way, not requiring memcached, and if so, which of my settings are wrong/missing? If I must use memcached, how many more settings must I configure in addition to its installation? Thanks.
Update
Here are my settings involving static assets.
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = '/tmp/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
PROJECT_ROOT.child("static"),
)
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
#'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.DefaultStorageFinder', If enabled breaks my LESS CSS.
'static_precompiler.finders.StaticPrecompilerFinder',
)
# STATICFILES_STORAGE not set but should default to 'django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage'
I am already serving some static images from mysite/static/img. And I forgot to mention that I am using the Django Static Precompiler for LESS CSS. My LESS files are at mysite/static/css and are compiled to /tmp/static/COMPILED/.
I see there is a cache dir in my project root mysite, and it does have the file which is trying to be served: cache/6a/a6/6aa6ebf6cef5bf481fd37d4947d25623.jpg.
I've read the documentation on serving static assets but it's unclear to me what settings to change. Seems that I either need to have that jpg produced in a different directory, or add this directory to the list of dirs from which I'm serving static assets. I tried adding this path to STATICFILES_DIRS but that didn't work.

When you go into this directory '/cache/cf/43/', do you actually see the file 'cf43126f1f961593650b5df4791e329f.jpg' in there?
If so, it may be returning a 404 because you are using the Django runserver (not sure if you are or not). If you are, it might be worth taking a look at how to serve media files in development mode, https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/howto/static-files/.

You don't need to setup the cache backend initialy, you may need to setup serving the static files, please look at the django docs about serving MEDIA and STATIC resources.
But the most important, Django 1.7 Support was introduced in the 12.1c release.
Try first:
pip install sorl-thumbnail==12.1c
It's also helpful that you set the debug thumbnail setting on your settings file:
THUMBNAIL_DEBUG = True

Both other answers correctly suggested problems with serving up media files. Here is the complete list of code changes that were required:
I had glossed over the fact that MEDIA assets are not the same as STATIC assets. This answer is the one that tipped me off to the fact that sorl-thumbnail is relying on MEDIA_URL to form its URL, and accordingly, MEDIA_ROOT. For my development, I set the following:
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = '/tmp/media/'
I used this snippet for URLconf changes for serving up the media files. At this point I put an image in the media directory and made sure my template could correctly reference it.
By this point, I had manually removed the sorl-thumbnail generated thumbnails, but no permutation of settings and activity would regenerate them. I remembered that getting your key value store/database/cached images out of sync requires manual cleanup. The management command ./manage.py thumbnail cleanup did the job, and it began regenerating again.
Also worth noting is that I did not have to set THUMBNAIL_KVSTORE at all, or setup any key value store.
I hope this helps get others get started faster in setting up their dev environment.

Using relative vs absolute URL for STATIC_URL in Django

I'm attempting to setup appropriate STATIC_URL and STATIC_ROOT values for a new Django project, and I'm running into a problem with using an absolute URL for STATIC_URL.
My project is structured like:
<project root>
static
media
src
<apps>
static
js
css
custom.css
i
settings.py
In my settings.py, I have
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__)), '../static/'))
If I set STATIC_URL = '/static/', then I can access http://localhost:8000/static/css/custom.css perfectly.
However, if I use an absolute URL like STATIC_URL = 'http://localhost:8000/static/', as though I were using a CDN, then http://localhost:8000/static/css/custom.css returns a 404 error.
Shouldn't these settings be effectively identical? The docs state STATIC_URL can be absolute. Why does the later setting fail to load static media?

I just tested the same thing, using http://localhost:8000/static/ doesn't work for me either.
In my settings I keep a development variable, so on localhost the url is '/static/' and when I'm deployed (and I set DEVELOPMENT = False), its a full url.
if DEVELOPMENT == True:
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
else:
STATIC_URL = 'https://www.mywebsite.com/static/'

I assume that you are using the static function from the django.conf.urls.static to serve your static files in the development environment (that means DEBUG=True). Now as you can read in the documentation this function is not working with the absolute urls with DEBUG enabled.
So from the docs:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/static-files/#serving-static-files-during-development
"This helper function works only in debug mode and only if the given prefix is local (e.g. /static/) and not a URL (e.g. http://static.example.com/)."

The cause and solution was simple, but discovering it was unintuitive based on how I described the problem. I failed to mention that my absolute STATIC_URL actually had a different domain (http://localmedia:8000/static/ not http://localhost:8000/static/).
I was doing this as part of a hack to simplify media hosting among several external development Windows machines I was using to test various versions of IE.
However, when there's a mismatch between the domain in STATIC_URL and runserver's local domain, Django only serves content from STATIC_ROOT and doesn't attempt to retrieve media from app folders. Not sure why, but that's the way it is.
If I ran manage.py collectstatic, it would effectively fix the 404 error by copying all app folder media into my STATIC_ROOT. Alternatively, I could just use the same domain in my STATIC_URL, and Django would automatically find any uncollected media in the app folders.

Django static files, and filepaths in settings.py

I'm trying my first proper webdev project and i'm learning the django framework.
I came here to ask about the cleanest way to use "static files", like the external CSS i'm referring to in one of my html templates. I tried reading through the official documentation on the subject but found it a little bit confusing as a beginner, i then tried googling but i noticed that most of the guides or stackoverflow answers differed slightly and i realised i needed a better understanding. Bit cheeky to ask but, could someone explain and summarise the process to me?
For reference, here is my project folder hierarchy. At the moment i'm trying to get the template base.html to use the sylesheet at CSS/base.css:
Also one of the things that keeps throwing me off is the use of absolute filepaths. So far i've managed to get away with just using relative filepaths, which makes more sense to me as the aim is to develop on the django test server then transfer it all onto my own server when i have one. (note: perhaps it's because i have no idea how complicated that transfer process is that i don't understand why absolute filepaths are prefered). What's the issue with using relative filepaths?
I realise that this has sort of become two questions, which is against the rules, but i really think both could be answered together and if i understood one it would probably aid my understanding of the other. Any help would be much appreciated.

Here is a set of code snippets from settings.py i have changed for including static files
import os
import django
DJANGO_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(django.__file__))
SITE_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
Dynamically setting variables for SITE_ROOT directory
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
'NAME': os.path.join(SITE_ROOT,'data.db'),
where the sqlite3 database is stored it needs absolute address
'USER': '',
'PASSWORD': '',
'HOST': '',
'PORT': '',
}
}
STATIC_ROOT = SITE_ROOT
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
store static files here
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(SITE_ROOT,'static'),
)
where the templates are stored
TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
os.path.join(SITE_ROOT,'templates'),
)
Now in templates use
{% load static %} --at beginning
<link href="{% static "css/bootstrap.min.css"%}" rel="stylesheet" media="screen">
this is an example showing how to access "css/bootstrap.min.css" in static directory

I'm going to assume you're using Django 1.3 or higher as that allows you to use staticfiles (docs) for static files. Here's the basic idea: each Django website consists of multiple apps (directories) that contain all the files needed for a particular part of the website (i.e., a models.py, views.py, a templates directory and also a static directory). This static directory contains the JavaScript and CSS files (as well as other static files for that app.
When deploying the website, you run the collectstatic command to gather all the static files into one directory. From that directory you then serve the static files to visitors of your site (i.e, Apache or a different web server can do that for you).
So the general structure of your web project could be:
manage.py
website/models.py
website/views.py
website/static/website/css/base.css
website/static/website/js/base.js
website/templates/website/base.html
static
settings.py
urls.py
You'll notice that the name of the Django app is repeated in the subdirectories of the static and templates directories. This is necessary because it keeps the files apart when they are moved to a general static directory. In the above example, the STATIC_ROOT is the top-level static directory and into this directory all your static files will be copied.
It's definitely worth reading the documentation of staticfiles as this project layout allows you to reuse Django apps in other projects with ease. For example, you can imagine a website that looks like this:
blog/models.py
blog/templates/blog/overview.html
blog/templates/blog/post.html
blog/urls.py
blog/views.py
photos/models.py
photos/templates/photos/overview.html
photos/templates/photos/photo.html
photos/urls.py
photos/views.py
manage.py
static
settings.py
urls.py
The apps blog and photos can now easily be reused in other websites if desired.

Really appreciate the time put into the #Simeon Visser's answer, and there was some really useful information there but it wasn't entirely what I was looking for. So I asked around and have sinister_user_name from reddit to thank for this, which I thought might help someone else:
Static files have changed a fair bit in recent releases so old blogs might be a bit of a mess.
I'll give it a shot:
In your templates you can use the static_url tag and django will fill in the path for you.
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}css/bootstrap.min.css">
It fills in the static url by looking at your settings file. STATIC_URL defaults to /static/ I think in settings? If static files end up in a weird url on your corporate web server you can just change it in settings anyway and it will reflect in all templates. So it doesn't matter if they are absolute.
When you go to deploy you fill in STATIC_ROOT in your settings, this is just the path that you've set your webserver to find the static files. Then if you run manage.py collectstatic and it will copy them to that directory. That's the only function of STATIC_ROOT I think.
I keep the template directory separate from my static directory, mainly because you want your webserver just to serve static files, while templates are processed by python. So, static files are almost not part of your application as far as the web server views them. I keep my templates and static files in separate paths just in the base directory, mainly because both are not python source files.
So my project structure would be like:
manage.py
website/settings.py
app/models.py
app/views.py
templates/base.html
static/js/jquery.js
static/css/bootstrap.css
The problem with relative paths is that they will need to change if your url scheme changes.
Optional: I found in this blog which helps to not put absolute file system paths into the settings.py which is good if your working from multiple machines eg work and home :(
With the slightly different layout for 1.4 I use this at the top of my settings:
import os
import django
import manage
DJANGO_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(django.__file__))
SITE_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(manage.__file__))
instead of what they suggest (the location of settings has moved in 1.4 or 1.3) so SITE_ROOT is messed up. I think that might work.
Further on down in the settings I use this:
# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, 'static'),
)
This will tell the development server where to find the static files. You can do the same for templates or just use the full file path.

STATIC files are not showed in Django templates

I'm trying to show images/js/css in my Django templates with {{ STATIC_URL }} label. In theory, this works because in browser, when i see the printed code the path to requested file is something like "/static/images/blabla.jpg". But the file is not showed, so i guess the problem is in Django project.
My settings looks like this:
STATIC_ROOT = '/absolute/path/to/static'
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
# Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
# Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
# Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
'/absolute/path/to/static'
)
In my urls.py:
url(r'^static/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve', {'document_root': settings.STATIC_ROOT}),
But i don't know why all files in static directory are not displayed in templates.
Any tip or advice?
Thanks mates.

First, it looks like there is a mistake in your settings. You should understand the django.contrib.staticfiles collectstatic command:
Collects the static files into STATIC_ROOT.
[...]
Files are searched by using the enabled finders. The default is to look in all locations defined in STATICFILES_DIRS and in the 'static' directory of apps specified by the INSTALLED_APPS setting.
So, it seems like a mistake that STATICFILES_DIRS contains STATIC_ROOT, since the contents of STATICFILES_DIR is ment to be copied into STATIC_ROOT by collectstatic.
The url is not necessary. You should either:
use runserver with DEBUG=True, in that case django will serve static files by default, in doubt use staticfiles_urlpatterns or
use a real httpd to serve STATIC_ROOT on STATIC_URL, in that case you should generate STATIC_ROOT from STATICFILES_DIRS (and actually each app's 'static' subdir, which is the point) with the command collectstatic
When in doubt, the findstatic command may also prove useful.
django.contrib.staticfiles might look a little confusing at first, but when you understand it fully you love it <3