application.css not being served as an asset

ruby-on-rails css erb asset-pipeline pre-compilation

13,841

Solution 1

I had the exact same issue, and solved it by changing this option to true (it is at false by default) in my production.rb file.

  # Disable Rails's static asset server (Apache or nginx will already do this)
  config.serve_static_assets = true

From what I understand, setting this option to false makes sense if you are running under Apache or nginx, which was not my case.

Solution 2

I had this issue the other day and solved it by editing the production.rb file

config.assets.compress = true
config.assets.compile = true
config.assets.digest = true
config.assets.initialize_on_precompile = false

Are the asset settings I ended up with. I precompile my assets, while deploying with capistrano.

Before I edited the asset settings, I had exactly the same issue. The .css was being requested and was compiled into my public/assets folder but the server couldnt find the files.

13,841

Author by

AJP

http://TheWorldSim.org

Updated on June 08, 2022

Comments

AJP almost 2 years

EDIT 4, 5 and 6

8 hours in, any more ideas are welcome :) Maybe this bug is already known and solved, but I get the behaviour I described in edit 2&3, when you have this in a .css.erb file in app/assets/stylesheets :

li {
    background-image: url(<%= asset_path "logo_80px_80px.png" %>);
}

The problem part seems to be the asset_path method call, but .css.scss also breaks it with:

li {
    background-image: url(image-path("logo_80px_80px.png"));
}

My GemFile is:

source 'http://rubygems.org'

gem 'rails', '3.1.3'
gem 'pg', '0.11.0'
gem 'gravatar_image_tag', '1.0.0.pre2'
gem 'will_paginate'
gem 'rake'
gem 'jquery-rails'
gem 'nested_form'
gem 'acts-as-taggable-on'

gem 'sass-rails'
group :assets do
  gem 'coffee-rails', '~> 3.1.0'
  gem 'uglifier', '>= 1.0.3'
end

group :development do
  gem 'rspec-rails', '2.5.0'
  gem 'annotate', '2.4.0'
  gem 'faker', '0.3.1'
end


group :test do
  gem 'rspec', '2.5.0'
  gem 'webrat', '0.7.1'
  gem 'factory_girl_rails', '1.0'
end

group :production do
  gem 'therubyracer-heroku'
end

My Gemfile.lock is:

GEM
  remote: http://rubygems.org/
  specs:
    actionmailer (3.1.3)
      actionpack (= 3.1.3)
      mail (~> 2.3.0)
    actionpack (3.1.3)
      activemodel (= 3.1.3)
      activesupport (= 3.1.3)
      builder (~> 3.0.0)
      erubis (~> 2.7.0)
      i18n (~> 0.6)
      rack (~> 1.3.5)
      rack-cache (~> 1.1)
      rack-mount (~> 0.8.2)
      rack-test (~> 0.6.1)
      sprockets (~> 2.0.3)
    activemodel (3.1.3)
      activesupport (= 3.1.3)
      builder (~> 3.0.0)
      i18n (~> 0.6)
    activerecord (3.1.3)
      activemodel (= 3.1.3)
      activesupport (= 3.1.3)
      arel (~> 2.2.1)
      tzinfo (~> 0.3.29)
    activeresource (3.1.3)
      activemodel (= 3.1.3)
      activesupport (= 3.1.3)
    activesupport (3.1.3)
      multi_json (~> 1.0)
    acts-as-taggable-on (2.2.1)
      rails (~> 3.1)
    annotate (2.4.0)
    arel (2.2.1)
    builder (3.0.0)
    coffee-rails (3.1.1)
      coffee-script (>= 2.2.0)
      railties (~> 3.1.0)
    coffee-script (2.2.0)
      coffee-script-source
      execjs
    coffee-script-source (1.1.3)
    diff-lcs (1.1.3)
    erubis (2.7.0)
    execjs (1.2.12)
      multi_json (~> 1.0)
    factory_girl (1.3.3)
    factory_girl_rails (1.0)
      factory_girl (~> 1.3)
      rails (>= 3.0.0.beta4)
    faker (0.3.1)
    gravatar_image_tag (1.0.0.pre2)
    hike (1.2.1)
    i18n (0.6.0)
    jquery-rails (1.0.19)
      railties (~> 3.0)
      thor (~> 0.14)
    json (1.6.3)
    mail (2.3.0)
      i18n (>= 0.4.0)
      mime-types (~> 1.16)
      treetop (~> 1.4.8)
    mime-types (1.17.2)
    multi_json (1.0.4)
    nested_form (0.1.1)
    nokogiri (1.5.0-x86-mingw32)
    pg (0.11.0-x86-mingw32)
    polyglot (0.3.3)
    rack (1.3.5)
    rack-cache (1.1)
      rack (>= 0.4)
    rack-mount (0.8.3)
      rack (>= 1.0.0)
    rack-ssl (1.3.2)
      rack
    rack-test (0.6.1)
      rack (>= 1.0)
    rails (3.1.3)
      actionmailer (= 3.1.3)
      actionpack (= 3.1.3)
      activerecord (= 3.1.3)
      activeresource (= 3.1.3)
      activesupport (= 3.1.3)
      bundler (~> 1.0)
      railties (= 3.1.3)
    railties (3.1.3)
      actionpack (= 3.1.3)
      activesupport (= 3.1.3)
      rack-ssl (~> 1.3.2)
      rake (>= 0.8.7)
      rdoc (~> 3.4)
      thor (~> 0.14.6)
    rake (0.9.2.2)
    rdoc (3.12)
      json (~> 1.4)
    rspec (2.5.0)
      rspec-core (~> 2.5.0)
      rspec-expectations (~> 2.5.0)
      rspec-mocks (~> 2.5.0)
    rspec-core (2.5.2)
    rspec-expectations (2.5.0)
      diff-lcs (~> 1.1.2)
    rspec-mocks (2.5.0)
    rspec-rails (2.5.0)
      actionpack (~> 3.0)
      activesupport (~> 3.0)
      railties (~> 3.0)
      rspec (~> 2.5.0)
    sass (3.1.12)
    sass-rails (3.1.5)
      actionpack (~> 3.1.0)
      railties (~> 3.1.0)
      sass (~> 3.1.10)
      tilt (~> 1.3.2)
    sprockets (2.0.3)
      hike (~> 1.2)
      rack (~> 1.0)
      tilt (~> 1.1, != 1.3.0)
    therubyracer-heroku (0.8.1.pre3)
    thor (0.14.6)
    tilt (1.3.3)
    treetop (1.4.10)
      polyglot
      polyglot (>= 0.3.1)
    tzinfo (0.3.31)
    uglifier (1.2.0)
      execjs (>= 0.3.0)
      multi_json (>= 1.0.2)
    webrat (0.7.1)
      nokogiri (>= 1.2.0)
      rack (>= 1.0)
      rack-test (>= 0.5.3)
    will_paginate (3.0.2)

PLATFORMS
  x86-mingw32

DEPENDENCIES
  acts-as-taggable-on
  annotate (= 2.4.0)
  coffee-rails (~> 3.1.0)
  factory_girl_rails (= 1.0)
  faker (= 0.3.1)
  gravatar_image_tag (= 1.0.0.pre2)
  jquery-rails
  nested_form
  pg (= 0.11.0)
  rails (= 3.1.3)
  rake
  rspec (= 2.5.0)
  rspec-rails (= 2.5.0)
  sass-rails
  therubyracer-heroku
  uglifier (>= 1.0.3)
  webrat (= 0.7.1)
  will_paginate

application.rb contents:

require File.expand_path('../boot', __FILE__)

require 'rails/all'


if defined?(Bundler)
  Bundler.require(*Rails.groups(:assets => %w(development test)))
end

module AjpApp
  class Application < Rails::Application
    config.encoding = "utf-8"
    config.filter_parameters += [:password]
    config.assets.enabled = true
    config.assets.version = '1.0'
  end
end

config/environments/production.rb contents:

AjpApp::Application.configure do
  config.cache_classes = true
  config.consider_all_requests_local       = false
  config.action_controller.perform_caching = true
  config.serve_static_assets = false
  config.assets.compress = true
  config.assets.compile = true
  config.assets.digest = true
  config.i18n.fallbacks = true
  config.active_support.deprecation = :notify
end

---Archived---

ORIGINAL POST

I have a Rails 3.1 application that was serving the application.css file when in production mode. After having some unrelated problems I found out about precompiling the assets using:

bundle exec rake assets:precompile RAILS_ENV=production

My application.css file, pre-compiled to produce: 'application-79d6fafe46c10758d8f5a921f1e55ecd.css' but is now not being served despite being present in the public/assets folder. The application.js file is being served fine (as application-9a36deba94d6308ab9bebe4e30a93959.js). Also I note that this problem first appeared after I created a .css.erb file, as suggested by the article on precompilation.

Any thoughts on what I try to do? I'm going to try undoing the .css.erb file, run precompilation again and see if I get my application.css file served.

EDIT 1

Problem does not come from changing .css file to .css.erb. And the erb works fine. Problem seems to come when the asset_path function is used e.g.:

.button_one {
    background-image: url(<%= asset_path "activities/text_editor_toolbar.png" %>);
}

This works to give the correct string e.g.: assets/activities/text_editor_toolbar.png", which shows up in the compiled application-(hash).css file which is served in development but not production mode. This is so weird. :| :@

Edit 2 Okay this just got better, but weirder. Seems if I run it once in production mode, it fails. Run it again in development, then again in production and it'll spend ages and launch the 'Microsoft Console Based Script Host' just like it's precompiling the assets, which from the output it seems like it's doing, before finally rendering the page and serving the application-(hash).css successfully:

C:\documents\ror\ajp_app>rails s -e production
=> Booting WEBrick
=> Rails 3.1.3 application starting in production on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
[2011-12-19 23:59:12] INFO  WEBrick 1.3.1
[2011-12-19 23:59:12] INFO  ruby 1.9.2 (2011-07-09) [i386-mingw32]
[2011-12-19 23:59:12] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=4052 port=3000
cache: [GET /] miss


Started GET "/" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-19 23:59:26 +0000
  Processing by PagesController#home as HTML
Rendered pages/home.html.erb within layouts/application (85.0ms)
Rendered layouts/_header.html.erb (2.0ms)
Rendered layouts/_footer.html.erb (1.0ms)
Completed 200 OK in 393ms (Views: 382.0ms | ActiveRecord: 10.0ms)
cache: [GET /assets/application-a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f.css] miss


Started GET "/assets/application-a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f.css" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-19 23:59:27 +0000
Nonexistent asset application-a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f.css @ a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f
Served asset /application-a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f.css - 404 Not Found (44ms)

ActionController::RoutingError (No route matches [GET] "/assets/application-a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f.css"):


Rendered C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.1.3/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/templates/rescues/routing_error.erb within rescues/layout
 (1.0ms)
[2011-12-19 23:59:39] INFO  going to shutdown ...
[2011-12-19 23:59:39] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start done.
Exiting

C:\documents\ajp_app>rails s
=> Booting WEBrick
=> Rails 3.1.3 application starting in development on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
[2011-12-20 00:00:14] INFO  WEBrick 1.3.1
[2011-12-20 00:00:14] INFO  ruby 1.9.2 (2011-07-09) [i386-mingw32]
[2011-12-20 00:00:14] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=2752 port=3000


Started GET "/" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:20 +0000
  Processing by PagesController#home as HTML
  ←[1m←[36m (0.0ms)←[0m  ←[1mSHOW search_path←[0m
  ←[1m←[35mUser Load (1.0ms)←[0m  SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = 1 LIMIT 1
Rendered pages/home.html.erb within layouts/application (171.0ms)
Compiled application.css  (4ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled colours.css  (9ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled custom.css  (1ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled activity.css  (26ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled jquery/jquery-ui-1.8.13.custom.css  (1ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled ellib/elcommon.css  (30ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled ellib/eldialogform.css  (0ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled elrte/elrte.css  (0ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled activities/text_editor.css  (2ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled errors.activities.css  (0ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled errors_and_notices.css  (0ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled general.css  (0ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled application.js  (15ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled jquery.js  (13ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled jquery_ujs.js  (0ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled jquery-ui.js  (19ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled AJP_main.js  (1ms)  (pid 2752)
Compiled ajp.utilities.js  (2ms)  (pid 2752)
Rendered layouts/_header.html.erb (4.0ms)
Rendered layouts/_footer.html.erb (2.0ms)
Completed 200 OK in 1091ms (Views: 1076.0ms | ActiveRecord: 15.0ms)


Started GET "/assets/custom.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /custom.css - 304 Not Modified (6ms)


Started GET "/assets/jquery/jquery-ui-1.8.13.custom.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /jquery/jquery-ui-1.8.13.custom.css - 304 Not Modified (7ms)


Started GET "/assets/ellib/eldialogform.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /ellib/eldialogform.css - 304 Not Modified (5ms)


Started GET "/assets/elrte/elrte.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /elrte/elrte.css - 304 Not Modified (5ms)


Started GET "/assets/activities/text_editor.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /activities/text_editor.css - 304 Not Modified (9ms)


Started GET "/assets/activity.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /activity.css - 200 OK (10ms)


Started GET "/assets/errors.activities.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /errors.activities.css - 304 Not Modified (3ms)


Started GET "/assets/errors_and_notices.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /errors_and_notices.css - 304 Not Modified (3ms)


Started GET "/assets/general.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /general.css - 304 Not Modified (3ms)


Started GET "/assets/jquery.js?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /jquery.js - 304 Not Modified (12ms)


Started GET "/assets/jquery_ujs.js?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:28 +0000
Served asset /jquery_ujs.js - 304 Not Modified (8ms)


Started GET "/assets/jquery-ui.js?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:29 +0000
Served asset /jquery-ui.js - 304 Not Modified (42ms)


Started GET "/assets/AJP_main.js?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:29 +0000
Served asset /AJP_main.js - 304 Not Modified (3ms)


Started GET "/assets/ajp.utilities.js?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:29 +0000
Served asset /ajp.utilities.js - 304 Not Modified (10ms)


Started GET "/assets/ellib/elcommon.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:29 +0000
Served asset /ellib/elcommon.css - 304 Not Modified (5ms)


Started GET "/assets/colours.css?body=1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:29 +0000
Served asset /colours.css - 304 Not Modified (12ms)


Started GET "/assets/activities/hello.png" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:00:30 +0000
Served asset /activities/hello.png - 404 Not Found (13ms)

ActionController::RoutingError (No route matches [GET] "/assets/activities/hello.png"):


Rendered C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.1.3/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/templates/rescues/routing_error.erb within rescues/layout
 (1.0ms)
[2011-12-20 00:00:37] INFO  going to shutdown ...
[2011-12-20 00:00:37] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start done.
Exiting

C:\documents\ajp_app>rails s -e production
=> Booting WEBrick
=> Rails 3.1.3 application starting in production on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
[2011-12-20 00:01:17] INFO  WEBrick 1.3.1
[2011-12-20 00:01:17] INFO  ruby 1.9.2 (2011-07-09) [i386-mingw32]
[2011-12-20 00:01:17] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=5912 port=3000
cache: [GET /] miss


Started GET "/" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:01:20 +0000
  Processing by PagesController#home as HTML
Rendered pages/home.html.erb within layouts/application (91.0ms)
Rendered layouts/_header.html.erb (3.0ms)
Rendered layouts/_footer.html.erb (1.0ms)
Completed 200 OK in 400ms (Views: 387.0ms | ActiveRecord: 12.0ms)
cache: [GET /assets/application-a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f.css] miss, store


Started GET "/assets/application-a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f.css" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:01:21 +0000
Compiled application-a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f.css  (4ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled colours.css  (9ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled custom.css  (0ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled activity.css  (21ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled jquery/jquery-ui-1.8.13.custom.css  (1ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled ellib/elcommon.css  (0ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled ellib/eldialogform.css  (1ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled elrte/elrte.css  (1ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled activities/text_editor.css  (0ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled errors.activities.css  (1ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled errors_and_notices.css  (0ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled general.css  (0ms)  (pid 5912)
Served asset /application-a05ca896e645eacb50266c7866d18a0f.css - 200 OK (871ms)
cache: [GET /assets/application-9a36deba94d6308ab9bebe4e30a93959.js] miss


Started GET "/assets/application-9a36deba94d6308ab9bebe4e30a93959.js" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:01:22 +0000
Compiled application-9a36deba94d6308ab9bebe4e30a93959.js  (9ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled jquery.js  (13ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled jquery_ujs.js  (1ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled jquery-ui.js  (19ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled AJP_main.js  (0ms)  (pid 5912)
Compiled ajp.utilities.js  (32ms)  (pid 5912)
Served asset /application-9a36deba94d6308ab9bebe4e30a93959.js - 304 Not Modified (110802ms)
cache: [GET /assets/logo_80px_80px-27d7b084daa398621574b10963529e84.png] miss


Started GET "/assets/logo_80px_80px-27d7b084daa398621574b10963529e84.png" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:03:13 +0000
Served asset /logo_80px_80px-27d7b084daa398621574b10963529e84.png - 304 Not Modified (3ms)
cache: [GET /assets/hello.png] miss


Started GET "/assets/hello.png" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-12-20 00:03:13 +0000
Served asset /hello.png - 404 Not Found (3ms)

ActionController::RoutingError (No route matches [GET] "/assets/hello.png"):


Rendered C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/actionpack-3.1.3/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/templates/rescues/routing_error.erb within rescues/layout
 (1.0ms)

. . . :-D & :-o ?

Edit 3 You don't need to run it once in production mode first (i.e. it's actually the act of running in development, that does something to trigger the production mode to (?) re-precompile the assets). After using rake to precompile the assets, it just needs to be run in development mode, request a page (which is necessary), then run in production and requesting home page again is enough for it to trigger what seems like the second precompile.

This has now survived a complete reboot of my machine (win 7-64bit). So I think it's a consistent bug.

Is StackOverflow the best place to continue this discussion or is it best to go on to the Sprocket git-hub page, or something?

AJP over 12 years

Hey Benjamin. Thanks very much for your help. The suggestion didn't seem to work in my case unfortunately, still getting ActionController::RoutingError (No route matches [GET] "/assets/application-3af646520ce8a8ac4b46dae627c89a0a.css") when run in production mode. It serves the .js and .png files fine though. How strange.
Aaron Gray almost 11 years

If you're using Heroku, you'll want this set to false as well.