Magento 2 : Symbolic links to pub/static files

Question

A while ago when I was working on a project with Magento 2, I noticed that my CSS and JavaScript files in pub/static of my theme were actually symbolic links to the actual files. This was also when I ran a setup:static-content:deploy action from the shell.

However, I recently migrated to a new system and checked out the code and the database of the project, but now when I deploy my static content, they are copies rather than Symbolic links.

Is something changed? Or am I missing some configuration setting here? It's not very productive to have to re-compile the static content every time I make a change to the JS or CSS.

I'm using Magento 2.0.6

Answer 1

Most likely you deleted all of your files in pub folder at some point in past, including:

1. /pub/static.php
2. /pub/static/.htaccess

When static file that you are looking for is not found, it redirects request to one folder above to static.php file, which initiates the fallback mechanism and pulls down that file as a symlink.

To resolve the issue copy down fresh copy of Magento 2.x that you are running and copy over those files to your pub folder.

Answer 2

Open your di.xml (app/etc/di.xml) and check around line 580 you should find something like this (I am using 2.0.6 and mode is set to the developer): As you can see view_preproccessed are symlinked and the default is set to copy.

<virtualType name="developerMaterialization" type="Magento\Framework\App\View\Asset\MaterializationStrategy\Factory">
    <arguments>
        <argument name="strategiesList" xsi:type="array">
            <item name="view_preprocessed" xsi:type="object">Magento\Framework\App\View\Asset\MaterializationStrategy\Symlink</item>
            <item name="default" xsi:type="object">Magento\Framework\App\View\Asset\MaterializationStrategy\Copy</item>
        </argument>
    </arguments>
</virtualType>

Also, take a look here Magento 2 404 error for scripts and css especially the answer from Chris O'Toole.