Magento CSS and JavaScript not loading due to using file system path

Question

I was unable to install a module using Magento Connect, getting a Connection Error try again later error. Following the instructions of the module developer I attempted to fix permissions in the document root with:

find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
chmod o+w var var/.htaccess app/etc
chmod 550 mage
chmod -R o+w media

It still didn't work so I ended up installing the module manually. I then logged into the admin backend and Magento was trying serve CSS files using the system file paths instead of URLs like so:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/home/user/public_html/js/calendar/calendar-win2k-1.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/home/user/public_html/skin/adminhtml/default/default/reset.css" media="all" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/home/user/public_html/skin/adminhtml/default/default/boxes.css" media="all" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/home/user/public_html/skin/adminhtml/default/default/custom.css" media="all" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/home/user/public_html/skin/adminhtml/default/default/xmlconnect/boxes.css" media="all" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/home/user/public_html/skin/adminhtml/default/default/print.css" media="print" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/home/user/public_html/skin/adminhtml/default/default/menu.css" media="screen, projection" />

I immediately removed the extension and tried to match the perms from another server with a working Magento to no avail. I have also:

• Cleared local, APC, and Magento caches
• Looked in error logs (logging is enabled)
• double-checked proper values of web/unsecure/base_url and web/secure/base_url in the DB
• Rebooted, 3 times ;)

Minify is not being used. Merge CSS files are enabled, however I cannot figure out how to disable without the admin interface (save and navigation isn't working, even when I replace the correct values with Firebug). Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

(Question originally posted by @reflexiv on Stack Overflow)

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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:

1. clearing media/css & media/js of all files
2. 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)
3. clearing var/cache

Reloaded front & backend & now css/js files are being served correctly.