Why would django fail with server 500 only when Debug=False AND db is set to production database on Heroku?

Question

When we run $ python manage.py runserver --settings=project.settings.local there are 4 different possible combinations:

1. Debug=True && DB=l

Answer 1

I have had the same issue. But then I removed this row in settings.py

STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'

Now I dont have 500 error when DEBUG=False. But probably, I guess gzip functionality doesnt work anymore.