/    Sign up×
Community /Pin to ProfileBookmark

[RESOLVED] 503 or 404 errors on a file I know exists?

Copy linkTweet thisAlerts:
May 17.2012

I’ve encountered this several times on a few different sites and I thought I would pose it to the group. It seems like a stupid question, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how it happens or how to fix it (except for one way).

Say, I’m working on a site and I’m coding pages like I normally would (in this case, HTML or PHP is the only language I can remember it happening on) and I code images and files in before they’re ready, just kind of as a placeholder for a file that I know will be there later, that I just haven’t put in yet. So, the syntax is there for an image, but the image itself doesn’t exist yet.

I then upload it to the server via FTP or CMS or what have you.

Then, I visit the site live, obviously not expecting the images to work, but just to test layout/CSS/whatever. Seeing that things are fine, I produce the images and upload them via FTP into the directories referenced by the pages.

I then visit the page and find that my images aren’t only not showing up, but giving an error (either 404 or 503 — I’ve seen both) in the Chrome property inspector and Firebug. Images that I know are there, know are referenced correctly and have no issues with them. Inputting the URL directly to the image produces the same results.

The only way I can get them to show up (that I’ve found) is to rename the file something different, change the referencing on the page to refer to the new file and re-upload it.

Has anybody else experienced this? I’m assuming it’s a server-side thing, but I have no idea how to fix it or ways to remedy it that don’t involve re-uploading and basically redoing everything I’ve just done.

Any thoughts?

to post a comment
Full-stack Developer

3 Comments(s) ↴

Copy linkTweet thisAlerts:
@perfectionsiMay 18.2012 — The meaning of 503 error is the web server is currently unable to handle the HTTP request due to temporary overloading of server. It is a temporary problem which is solve after some delay. On the other hand, a 404 error means that the page you were looking on the website couldn't found on their server. Basically, it is a client – side error, either because you typed the wrong URL or page has been moved or removed from the web site.
Copy linkTweet thisAlerts:
@vijesh1983May 18.2012 — Hey !

Just thinking of a possibilty -> if you have a proxy server within the organization, this server might have cached the result of your first image hit - which was obviously a 404 (because the file was not there). When you hit the URL again, it will be going through this proxy, and proxy will try to fetch it from its cache.. A similar problem could be - say suppose you are uploading images in the initial setup itself.. now after testing the page once, you are changing the image in the server (not the URL). If you hit the page, you will still see the old image .

One possible solution could be -

Load this image using JavaScript and pass a parameter whose values should change for each hit.

For example

window.onload = function(){

document.getElementById("imgId").src = url+"?ts="+new Date().toString()

}

Value of Date will change in every second

Let me know if it works
Copy linkTweet thisAlerts:
@jacobdeschauthorMay 24.2012 — It turned out to be a permissions issue (in this case at least). For some reason, the images got changed so that only the owner could read or write (700, I think). I changed them to 644 (I think) and the issue corrected itself.
×

Success!

Help @jacobdesch spread the word by sharing this article on Twitter...

Tweet This
Sign in
Forgot password?
Sign in with TwitchSign in with GithubCreate Account
about: ({
version: 0.1.9 — BETA 5.21,
whats_new: community page,
up_next: more Davinci•003 tasks,
coming_soon: events calendar,
social: @webDeveloperHQ
});

legal: ({
terms: of use,
privacy: policy
});
changelog: (
version: 0.1.9,
notes: added community page

version: 0.1.8,
notes: added Davinci•003

version: 0.1.7,
notes: upvote answers to bounties

version: 0.1.6,
notes: article editor refresh
)...
recent_tips: (
tipper: @AriseFacilitySolutions09,
tipped: article
amount: 1000 SATS,

tipper: @Yussuf4331,
tipped: article
amount: 1000 SATS,

tipper: @darkwebsites540,
tipped: article
amount: 10 SATS,
)...