Custom per-VIRTUAL_HOST location config without effect: 502 Bad Gateway

I try to setup a dockerized nginx reverse proxy server, which should supply a dockerized Gunicorn webserver with. The Gunicorn webserver shall be accessible through example.com/django so I added custom nginx directives, as described here: https://github.com/nginx-proxy/nginx-proxy/blob/main/README.md#per-virtual_host-location-configuration

I placed the directives in a example.com_django/www.example.com_django file. However, they are not adopted in the main nginx config file and don't seem to have any effect. The website is not accessible and results in a 502 Bad Gateway error.

Docker Compose files and the custom nginx config file are further below.

Main ressources I used are:

• https://testdriven.io/blog/dockerizing-django-with-postgres-gunicorn-and-nginx/#project-setup
• https://github.com/nginx-proxy/nginx-proxy/blob/main/README.md
• https://docs.gunicorn.org/en/stable/deploy.html#nginx-configuration

docker-compose.yml: NGINX Proxy

version: "3.9"

services:
    nginx-proxy:
        image: nginxproxy/nginx-proxy:alpine
        container_name: nginx-proxy
        volumes:
            - conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
            - html:/usr/share/nginx/html
            - dhparam:/etc/nginx/dhparam
            - vhost:/etc/nginx/vhost.d:ro
            - certs:/etc/nginx/certs:ro
            - /var/run/docker.sock:/tmp/docker.sock:ro
        restart: always
        networks:
            - nginx-net
        ports:
            - 80:80
            - 443:443

    acme:
        image: nginxproxy/acme-companion:latest
        container_name: nginx-proxy-acme
        depends_on:
            - nginx-proxy
        volumes:
            - html:/usr/share/nginx/html
            - conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
            - dhparam:/etc/nginx/dhparam
            - vhost:/etc/nginx/vhost.d:ro
            - certs:/etc/nginx/certs:rw
            - acme:/etc/acme.sh
            - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
        environment:
            - NGINX_PROXY_CONTAINER=nginx-proxy
            - DEFAULT_EMAIL=account@domain.com
        restart: always
        networks:
            - nginx-net
volumes:
  conf:
  certs:
  html:
  vhost:
  dhparam:
  acme:

networks:
  nginx-net:
    external: true

docker-compose.yml: Django Server

version: '3.8'

# Prod environment

services:
  web:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    command: gunicorn core.wsgi:application --forwarded-allow-ips="172.31.0.0/24,www.example.com,example.com" --bind 0.0.0.0:8083
    expose:
      - 8083
    env_file:
      - ./.env
    environment:
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=example.com,www.example.com
      - VIRTUAL_PATH=/django
      - LETSENCRYPT_HOST=example.com,www.examplecom
      - LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL=account@domain.com
    depends_on:
      - db
    networks:
      - nginx-net

  db:
    image: postgis/postgis:15-3.3-alpine
    env_file:
      - ./.env
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data/
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=${DB_USER}
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${DB_PASSWORD}
      - POSTGRES_DB=${DB_NAME}
    ports:
      - ${DB_PORT_EXT}:${DB_PORT_INT}
volumes:
  postgres_data:

networks:
  nginx-net:
    external: true

example.com_django / www.example.com_django in /etc/nginx/vhost.d

proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_redirect off;

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