Vite Unable to Fetch Static Files from Django

Recently, I encountered an issue while working on a project that integrates Django for the backend with Vite and Vue for the frontend. Everything was going smoothly until I attempted to use static images from the Django app in the Vue frontend. Despite configuring the proxy correctly in Vite, the images failed to load.

Project Setup

My project structure was as follows: - Backend: Django (serving APIs and static/media files) - Frontend: Vue 3 with Vite - Dev Server Proxy: Vite was set up to proxy API calls to Django at localhost:8000.

You would expect this setup to allow the frontend to access Django’s static files, but it did not work as expected.

The Problem

Even though Django served static files correctly when accessed directly (via a browser or curl), Vite could not fetch them inside Vue components. For example, an image referenced like this:

<img src="/static/images/logo.png" />

would either result in an error or display a broken image icon in the browser. Interestingly, this path worked fine in the index.html file but failed within .vue components.

The Cause

The issue arose because when you reference an image in a Vue component, Vite attempts to resolve the image during build time, treating it as a module. Since the image does not exist within the Vue project directory, Vite cannot locate it, leading to an error or a broken image icon.

The Solution That Worked for Me

The solution was straightforward: bind the src attribute in Vue using v-bind and wrap the path in single quotes:

<img :src="'/static/images/logo.png'" />

How This Works?

Using :src="'/static/images/logo.png'" instructs Vue to treat the path as a plain string, which is rendered at runtime in the browser. This approach bypasses Vite’s import system and allows the browser to request the image directly from Django’s static files.

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