title: Django global static files not loading
body: <p>I want to have global static files and templates for all my apps. My apps also will have templates and static files  It will look something like this:</p>
  
  <p>I am loading my global files like these but it is not working.</p>
  
  <pre><code>{% load staticfiles %}
  
  href="{% static  'bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css' %}"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and I get:</p>
  
  <p>"NetworkError: 500 Internal Server Error - <a href="http://localhost:8000/static/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="nofollow">http://localhost:8000/static/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css</a>"</p>
  
  <p>By the way I can access to my apps static but not the global, I debug the STATIC_ROOT and PROJECT_ROOT and they seem good.</p>
  
  <pre><code>PROJECT_ROOT ='C:\\webpages\\client_portal\\client_portal'
  
  projectname]/                  &lt;- project root 
  ├── [projectname]/              &lt;- Django root
  │   ├── __init__.py
  │   ├── settings/
  │   ├── urls.py
  │   └── wsgi.py
  ├── apps/
  │   └── __init__.py
  │
  ├── manage.py
  │
  ├── static/
  │   └── GLOBAL STATIC FILES
  └── templates/
      └── GLOBAL TEMPLATES
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My settings.py looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'
  
  PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
  
  STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, '/static')
  STATIC_URL = '/static/'
  
  # Extra places for collectstatic to find static files.
  STATICFILES_DIRS = (
      os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, '/static'),
  )
  </code></pre>