<p>I'm preparing to deploy my Django app and I noticed that when I change the "DEBUG" setting to False, all references to static files (i.e., JavaScript, CSS, etc..) result in <code>HTTP 500</code> errors.</p>

<p>Any idea what's causing that issue (and how to fix it)?</p>

I would highly recommend letting your web server handle the static requests, without getting to Django. In my
```
urls.py
```
, I only add the static request handler when debug is set to True.
Technically, Django serving the static works fine though. Definitely read the short docs page,
http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/static-files/
. You'll want to use an entry like this in
```
urls.py
```
```
```
(r'^static/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve',
    {'document_root': '/path/to/media'})
```
```