title: Heroku/Django deploy: why am I getting an error 500 with successful deploy and static collection?
body: <p>I've been struggling to deploy my first Django site on Heroku for months. I'm getting successful builds with <code>git push heroku master</code> and successfully collecting the static files using <code>heroku run python manage.py collectstatic --noinput</code>, but I can't get the site to serve without an error 500 when <code>DEBUG = config('DEBUG', default=False, cast=bool)</code>. The site does work when DEBUG is set to True (though I'm going to have to figure out making the database work). I think my allowed hosts are set correctly. All of the answers I can find on SO don't quite solve my issue.</p>
  <p>I added the logging from <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15128135/setting-debug-false-causes-500-error">this answer</a> which gives me a little more information in the logs, but I'm not understanding why the staticfiles aren't available when I've been able to successfully collect them?</p>
  <pre><code>2018-12-09T16:24:38.181428+00:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up
  2018-12-09T16:24:39.173376+00:00 app[web.1]: /app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/whitenoise/base.py:104: UserWarning: No directory at: /app/staticfiles/
  2018-12-09T16:24:39.173419+00:00 app[web.1]: warnings.warn(u'No directory at: {}'.format(root))
  2018-12-09T16:24:39.173421+00:00 app[web.1]: /app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/whitenoise/base.py:104: UserWarning: No directory at: /app/staticfiles/
  2018-12-09T16:24:39.173423+00:00 app[web.1]: warnings.warn(u'No directory at: {}'.format(root))
  </code></pre>
  <p>I'm obviously missing a lot, any guidance would be most appreciated.</p>
  <p>Editing to add:</p>
  <h1>settings.py</h1>
  <pre><code>import os
  import dj_database_url
  from decouple import config
  
  # Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
  BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
  
  # Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
  # See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/howto/deployment/checklist/
  
  # SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
  SECRET_KEY = config('SECRET_KEY')
  
  # SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
  DEBUG = config('DEBUG', default=False, cast=bool)
  
  ALLOWED_HOSTS = [
      'localhost',
      '127.0.0.1',
      'tallymusic.herokuapp.com',
      '.tallymusic.net'
  ]
  
  # Application definition
  INSTALLED_APPS = [
      'django.contrib.admin',
      'django.contrib.auth',
      'django.contrib.contenttypes',
      'django.contrib.sessions',
      'django.contrib.messages',
      'django.contrib.staticfiles',
      # user-created apps
      'concerts',
  ]
  
  MIDDLEWARE = [
      'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
      'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware',
      'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
      'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
      'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
      'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
      'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
      'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
  ]
  
  ROOT_URLCONF = 'tallymusic.urls'
  
  TEMPLATES = [
      {
          'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
          'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'templates')],
          'APP_DIRS': True,
          'OPTIONS': {
              'context_processors': [
                  'django.template.context_processors.debug',
                  'django.template.context_processors.request',
                  'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
                  'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
              ],
          },
      },
  ]
  
  WSGI_APPLICATION = 'tallymusic.wsgi.application'
  
  # Database
  # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/ref/settings/#databases
  DATABASES = {
      'default': dj_database_url.config(
          default=config('DATABASE_URL')
      )
  }
  &quot;&quot;&quot; # dev
  DATABASES = {
      'default': {
          'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
          'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
      }
  }
  &quot;&quot;&quot;
  
  # Password validation
  # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/ref/settings/#auth-password-validators
  
  AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
      {
          'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator',
      },
      {
          'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator',
      },
      {
          'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator',
      },
      {
          'NAME': 'django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator',
      },
  ]
  
  # Internationalization
  # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/topics/i18n/
  LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'
  TIME_ZONE = 'EST'
  USE_I18N = True
  USE_L10N = True
  USE_TZ = True
  
  # Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
  # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/howto/static-files/
  STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
  STATIC_URL = '/assets/'
  STATICFILES_DIRS = (
      os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'assets'),
      os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'assets/css'),
      os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'assets/images'),
      os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'assets/js'),
  )
  
  STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage'
  
  # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15128135/setting-debug-false-causes-500-error
  LOGGING = {
      'version': 1,
      'disable_existing_loggers': False,
      'formatters': {
          'verbose': {
              'format' : &quot;[%(asctime)s] %(levelname)s [%(name)s:%(lineno)s] %(message)s&quot;,
              'datefmt' : &quot;%d/%b/%Y %H:%M:%S&quot;
          },
          'simple': {
              'format': '%(levelname)s %(message)s'
          },
      },
      'handlers': {
          'file': {
              'level': 'DEBUG',
              'class': 'logging.FileHandler',
              'filename': 'mysite.log',
              'formatter': 'verbose'
          },
      },
      'loggers': {
          'django': {
              'handlers':['file'],
              'propagate': True,
              'level':'DEBUG',
          },
          'MYAPP': {
              'handlers': ['file'],
              'level': 'DEBUG',
          },
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  <h1>More logs</h1>
  <pre><code>2018-12-09T16:24:14.000000+00:00 app[api]: Build started by user ME
  2018-12-09T16:24:29.581094+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Restarting
  2018-12-09T16:24:29.581759+00:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to starting
  2018-12-09T16:24:30.254016+00:00 app[web.1]: [2018-12-09 16:24:30 +0000] [4] [INFO] Handling signal: term
  2018-12-09T16:24:30.254190+00:00 app[web.1]: [2018-12-09 11:24:30 +0000] [11] [INFO] Worker exiting (pid: 11)
  2018-12-09T16:24:30.255609+00:00 app[web.1]: [2018-12-09 11:24:30 +0000] [12] [INFO] Worker exiting (pid: 12)
  2018-12-09T16:24:30.297433+00:00 app[web.1]: [2018-12-09 16:24:30 +0000] [4] [INFO] Shutting down: Master
  2018-12-09T16:24:30.245505+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping all processes with SIGTERM
  2018-12-09T16:24:30.366997+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited with status 0
  2018-12-09T16:24:29.201161+00:00 app[api]: Deploy eff240d7 by user ME
  2018-12-09T16:24:29.201161+00:00 app[api]: Release v23 created by user ME
  2018-12-09T16:24:34.427399+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command `gunicorn tallymusic.wsgi --log-file -`
  2018-12-09T16:24:36.000000+00:00 app[api]: Build succeeded
  2018-12-09T16:24:37.293769+00:00 app[web.1]: [2018-12-09 16:24:37 +0000] [4] [INFO] Starting gunicorn 19.9.0
  2018-12-09T16:24:37.294491+00:00 app[web.1]: [2018-12-09 16:24:37 +0000] [4] [INFO] Listening at: http://0.0.0.0:3342 (4)
  2018-12-09T16:24:37.296193+00:00 app[web.1]: [2018-12-09 16:24:37 +0000] [4] [INFO] Using worker: sync
  2018-12-09T16:24:37.315139+00:00 app[web.1]: [2018-12-09 16:24:37 +0000] [11] [INFO] Booting worker with pid: 11
  2018-12-09T16:24:37.380085+00:00 app[web.1]: [2018-12-09 16:24:37 +0000] [12] [INFO] Booting worker with pid: 12
  2018-12-09T16:24:38.181428+00:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up
  2018-12-09T16:24:39.173376+00:00 app[web.1]: /app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/whitenoise/base.py:104: UserWarning: No directory at: /app/staticfiles/
  2018-12-09T16:24:39.173419+00:00 app[web.1]: warnings.warn(u'No directory at: {}'.format(root))
  2018-12-09T16:24:39.173421+00:00 app[web.1]: /app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/whitenoise/base.py:104: UserWarning: No directory at: /app/staticfiles/
  2018-12-09T16:24:39.173423+00:00 app[web.1]: warnings.warn(u'No directory at: {}'.format(root))
  </code></pre>