Detect when an image fails to load in Javascript

You could try the following code. I can't vouch for browser compatibility though, so you'll have to test that.

function testImage(URL) {
    var tester=new Image();
    tester.onload=imageFound;
    tester.onerror=imageNotFound;
    tester.src=URL;
}

function imageFound() {
    alert('That image is found and loaded');
}

function imageNotFound() {
    alert('That image was not found.');
}

testImage("http://foo.com/bar.jpg");

And my sympathies for the jQuery-resistant boss!

The answer is nice, but it introduces one problem. Whenever you assign onload or onerror directly, it may replace the callback that was assigned earlier. That is why there's a nice method that "registers the specified listener on the EventTarget it's called on" as they say on MDN. You can register as many listeners as you want on the same event.

Let me rewrite the answer a little bit.

function testImage(url) {
    var tester = new Image();
    tester.addEventListener('load', imageFound);
    tester.addEventListener('error', imageNotFound);
    tester.src = url;
}

function imageFound() {
    alert('That image is found and loaded');
}

function imageNotFound() {
    alert('That image was not found.');
}

testImage("http://foo.com/bar.jpg");

Because the external resource loading process is asynchronous, it would be even nicer to use modern JavaScript with promises, such as the following.

function testImage(url) {

    // Define the promise
    const imgPromise = new Promise(function imgPromise(resolve, reject) {

        // Create the image
        const imgElement = new Image();

        // When image is loaded, resolve the promise
        imgElement.addEventListener('load', function imgOnLoad() {
            resolve(this);
        });

        // When there's an error during load, reject the promise
        imgElement.addEventListener('error', function imgOnError() {
            reject();
        })

        // Assign URL
        imgElement.src = url;

    });

    return imgPromise;
}

testImage("http://foo.com/bar.jpg").then(

    function fulfilled(img) {
        console.log('That image is found and loaded', img);
    },

    function rejected() {
        console.log('That image was not found');
    }

);