[Django]-Empty Request.FILES with Django Upload forms

old question, but somebody might still find this useful.

In order to have your <input type=file> files uploaded and showns in request.FILES, your form MUST contain enctype="multipart/form-data", eg:

<form action="" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">{% csrf_token %}
{{ form.as_p }}
<button type="submit">{% trans 'Submit' %}</button>
</form>

otherwise your files will not be uploaded and your request.FILES will be empty.

BTW That’s a common solution to a common error. Nevertheless, I still found myself in a situation with an empty FILES (and the file in the POST) when everything else was looking OK. I have the feeling it was a size limit but did not want to spend more time debugging, and just used request.raw_post_data. If ever somebody falls on this issue please add a comment (including precise django version!) and I’ll try to debug more deeply.

The problem for me was that I am missing the "name" attribute for the file input.

I know this is an old question, but it is the first result on google for “django request.file empty” so I would like to add a potential solution after searching for two days:

If you submit your files through ajax, make sure to send your form via formData() instead of form.serialize()

see also here: Django JQuery Ajax File Upload

I found that If you put put the form in a content block then it seems to work

    {% block content %}
<form enctype="multipart/form-data" class="uniForm" id="wayfinder_map_form" method="POST" action="">
        <fieldset class="inlineLabels">
            {{ wayfinder_map_form|as_uni_form }}
            <div class="form_block">
                <input type="hidden" name="action" value="create" />
                <input type="submit" value="{% trans 'create' %}"/>
            </div>
        </fieldset>
    </form>
{% endblock %}

I think your troubles may lie in assigning data to a form without first verifying the the request is POST

@login_required
def create_map(request, form_class=WayfinderMapForm, template_name="wayfinder/map create.html"):
  if request.method=='POST':
    wayfinder_map_form = form_class(request.user, data=request.POST, files=request.FILES)

    if wayfinder_map_form.is_valid():
      #save your data
      return HttpResponseRedirect(wayfinder_map.get_absolute_url())

  else:
    wayfinder_map_form=form_class(request.user)

 return render_to_response(template_name, {"wayfinder_map_form": wayfinder_map_form,}, context_instance=RequestContext(request))