Django Admin CSS Not Loading in Production

Based on your screenshot, it appears that your Django admin site is missing its CSS styling after deployment. This is a common issue when moving from development to production environments, especially when using mod_wsgi.

Likely Cause

The most common reason for this issue is that the static files (CSS, JavaScript, images) for the admin interface aren't being served correctly in your production environment. While Django's development server automatically serves these files, in production you need to configure your web server to handle them.

Solutions

1. Check if you're using mod_wsgi

If you're using mod_wsgi for deployment, this is a known issue addressed in the Django documentation. You need to properly configure your server to serve the admin static files.

Refer to the "serving the admin files" section in the Django documentation for mod_wsgi deployment.

2. Ensure static files are properly configured

Make sure your settings include:

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STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = '/path/to/your/static/files/directory/'

3. Run collectstatic

If you haven't already, run:

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python manage.py collectstatic

This command collects all static files from your apps (including Django admin) into the STATIC_ROOT directory.

4. Configure your web server

Depending on your web server (Apache, Nginx, etc.), you need to configure it to serve files from your STATIC_ROOT directory at the URL specified by STATIC_URL.

For Nginx, a typical configuration might look like:

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location /static/ {
    alias /path/to/your/static/files/directory/;
}

For Apache:

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Alias /static/ /path/to/your/static/files/directory/
<Directory /path/to/your/static/files/directory/>
    Require all granted
</Directory>

5. Check browser console for errors

Open your browser's developer tools and check the console for any 404 errors related to CSS files. This can help identify exactly which files aren't being found.

If you need more specific guidance based on your deployment setup, please provide details about your web server and deployment configuration.