Magento2: Pub/Static directory is empty

[mrugeshrocks]

I did a fresh install it went successful after a lot of tries.

Both front-end and admin wont load CSS/JS/ files are not created in pub/static directory & as one directory _requireJs

Also frontend and adminhtml directories do not exist in pub/static.

[mrugeshrocks]

For further info, i was installing it with sample data.

[buskamuza]

Is Apache mode_rewrite enabled and its configuration is allowed from .htaccess files of your web-site?

[mrugeshrocks]

@buskamuza .htaccess was not allowed. I allowed .htacess and magento showed up the theme.

Could you put some light on this behavior of magento?

Thanks for the help. :)

[mazhalai]

More documentation about this behavior here

[buskamuza]

Additionally to the big documentation @mazhalai pointed to, here is how static view files are related to mod_rewrite.

1. Browser requests a file
2. It's not found, as it doesn't exist by default
3. Rewrite rule in pub/static/.htaccess discovers it and redirects to pub/static.php
4. pub/static.php searches for the requested file using fallback mechanism described in the article mentioned by @mazhalai
5. If the file is found, it's published somewhere to pub/static/ folder (e.g., pub/static/frontend/Magento/blank/css/file.css)
6. On the next request, the file already exists, so it's just returned as a static content w/o involving mod_rewrite

This is default behavior (when default application mode is used).
In developer mode the file is not even published to pub/static folder. It goes through pub/static.php entry point every time.
In production mode it's expected that all files are published to pub/static folder, so pub/static.php should not be involved at all. If it is, it just returns 404 error. There is a tool for deploying static view files and it should be used to make production mode work (dev/tools/Magento/Tools/View/deploy.php)

We're thinking how UX can be improved in this area, but right now it works as described above.

[verklov]

@mrugeshrocks, are there other questions remaining that you'd like to ask related to your original question?

[mrugeshrocks]

Thanks @buskamuza & @mazhalai

With this im closing the issue.

[bucha]

Just as a side note…
I had to add RewriteBase /pub/static/ when using a VirtualDocumentRoot.

[magento-engcom-team]

Hi @mrugeshrocks. Thank you for your report.
The issue has been fixed in magento/graphql-ce#973 by @VitaliyBoyko in 2.3-develop branch
Related commit(s):

• 3489da5cf2cb98ad9ff758b3a3c8f6783339436b
• 63bd2327cdaba3f75b9d6e955e181f2c4a18a13c
• b64a485793d81b0734539e27a0c049b765186991

The fix will be available with the upcoming 2.3.4 release.

[magento-engcom-team]

Hi @mrugeshrocks. Thank you for your report.
The issue has been fixed in magento/magento2#28366 by @Nazar65 in 2.4-develop branch
Related commit(s):

• 8bfc104948ce65e0f98e78f34aeffacdc2f8f276
• a5a13fb40f7656dfa79cecec9c0b921d30cdd52f
• 5667714ced2b982a14b5b18b6591d34fbf287028
• a867d70f9809e95c75e3d4aa6dc0d2808620605f
• 1d0316d756987e4453c38bb432eee03153a7fec0
• d06fd27fbdaa2633c81e9f5babff6aa28b56ffed
• f953f3545453fecfc5d47e2b23411a13aa39b6be
• a0ed711a5235f06cb6d36a308293f0257b93c256
• a63e68113f978ce0c24b1a2221a314b0fdbcbebe
• 2133abce671bb6b09a835eec80e265568f9b3960
• 5032914621d42df37977acea17e06d98c94b748e
• a54886350a90a3c944af90c5cd88d4dbbc0b0881
• 6e8c990ba95ad754dfe6a617bff77e428f2c6bc4
• aef54e3e1697e1fb513c2ba35d81a6fb665cb6b2

The fix will be available with the upcoming 2.4.1 release.