Magento CSS and JavaScript not loading due to using file system path
Magento using full path urls to access CSS files is a common error that results from two things happening:
- Having Merge CSS Files Enabled
- Magento being unable to read/write to the media/ folder.
To fix this issue, please ensure that:
- The media/ folder exists in your Magento installation.
- The media/ folder is writable by your web server.
As @flochtililoch posted on Stack Exchange:
You should check that apache actually owns the media directory, by checking first which user apache is running as, and then adjusting permissions accordingly:
chown -R <apache_user> media
chmod -R ug+w media
More information here: Magento Filesystem Permissions
I've just encountered a very similar problem when copying a site from a live server to a local dev (MAMP) apache server. The following resolved it for me:
- clearing
media/css
&media/js
of all files - In the database table
core_config_data
setting:
dev/js/merge_files
to 0 (had been 1)
dev/css/merge_css_files
to 0 (had been 1) - clearing
var/cache
Reloaded front & backend & now css/js files are being served correctly.