Serving Media files in cPanel Shared Hosting for Django Web App

Question

I am not able to display media files on Cpanel shared hosting Django web app. I receive a Error 404 URL Not Found whenever I try to access the media file.

I have specified + static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT) in my urls.py file.

This error only occurs whenever DEBUG = False. I am using whitenoise to serve the static files without any issue it is only the media directory that causes the 404 web error.

settings.py

"""
Django settings for app project.

Generated by 'django-admin startproject' using Django 3.2.9.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/
"""
import os
from pathlib import Path

# Build paths inside the project like this: BASE_DIR / 'subdir'.
BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent


# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/howto/deployment/checklist/

# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!

# Replace with your secret key. Secret key is set as an env variable in Python
# Web Application Page
SECRET_KEY = os.environ['SECRET_KEY']

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = False

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*', 'subdomain.myapp.com']


# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'myapp',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

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 = 'app.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 = 'app.wsgi.application'

# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3',
    }
}


# Password validation
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/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/3.2/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True


# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/howto/static-files/
# Static files are served via whitenoise
STATIC_URL = '/staticfiles/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles/')
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static/"),
)

MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media/')

# Default primary key field type
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#default-auto-field

DEFAULT_AUTO_FIELD = 'django.db.models.BigAutoField'

passenger_wsgi.py

import os
import sys

#########Accessing the App's Default WSGI##############
import app.wsgi

application = app.wsgi.application

######## PASSENGER PATH INFO-FIX INITIALISATIONS#######
cwd = os.getcwd()
sys.path.append(cwd)
#sys.path.append(os.getcwd())
sys.path.append(cwd + '/app')  #You must add your project here
# Set this to your root
SCRIPT_NAME = os.getcwd()

########  MIDDLEWARE CLASS TO FIX PASSENGER'S URI ISSUES #############
class PassengerPathInfoFix(object):
    """
    Sets PATH_INFO from REQUEST_URI since Passenger doesn't provide it.
    """
    def __init__(self, app):
        self.app = app

    def __call__(self, environ, start_response):
        #IF YOU ARE IN PYTHON 2.7 USE: from urllib import unquote
        from urllib.parse import unquote
        environ['SCRIPT_NAME'] = SCRIPT_NAME

        request_uri = unquote(environ['REQUEST_URI'])
        script_name = unquote(environ.get('SCRIPT_NAME', ''))
        offset = request_uri.startswith(script_name) and len(environ['SCRIPT_NAME']) or 0
        environ['PATH_INFO'] = request_uri[offset:].split('?', 1)[0]
        return self.app(environ, start_response)

###########the redirecting Middleware
application = PassengerPathInfoFix(application)

I am using Python v3.8.6, Django=2.1 and CPanel Shared Hosting via NameCheap.

I know it's recommended to have a webserver to store and serve media files in Production Environment but I am unable to edit the Apache httpd.conf file as mentioned in the Django documentation.