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Resource Loading Events

Track loading of external resources with onload and onerror

Abhishek Sharma 2026-06-10 Web Development / Frontend / JavaScript DOM / Resource-Loading
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Resource Loading Events

When your page loads images, scripts, stylesheets, or any external resource, you can track when they succeed or fail.

The Pattern

Every resource-loading element supports two events:

element.onload = function() {
  // resource loaded successfully
};

element.onerror = function() {
  // resource failed to load
};

Loading Images

Demo: Image Load Events
HTML 
<div id='image-demo'>
<p><button id='load-img'>Load Image</button></p>
<div id='img-container'></div>
<pre id='img-log' style='background:#f1f5f9;padding:8px;border-radius:4px;'></pre>
</div>
JavaScript 
const container = document.getElementById('img-container');
const log = document.getElementById('img-log');

document.getElementById('load-img').onclick = function() {
const img = new Image();
container.innerHTML = '';
container.appendChild(img);

img.onload = function() {
log.textContent = 'Image loaded! Width: ' + this.naturalWidth + 'px, Height: ' + this.naturalHeight + 'px';
this.disabled = true;
this.textContent = 'Loaded';
};

img.onerror = function() {
log.textContent = 'Image failed to load (placeholder URL used)';
};

// Using a real image URL
img.src = 'https://picsum.photos/200/150?random=' + Math.random();
log.textContent = 'Loading image...';
};
Live Output Window

Checking Image Natural Dimensions

Once an image loads, naturalWidth and naturalHeight give you its intrinsic dimensions:

img.onload = function() {
  console.log(this.naturalWidth + 'x' + this.naturalHeight);
};

Loading Scripts with onload/onerror

Demo: Script Load Events
HTML 
<div id='script-demo'>
<p><button id='load-ext-script'>Load External Script</button></p>
<p><button id='load-fail-script'>Load Failing Script</button></p>
<pre id='resource-log' style='background:#f1f5f9;padding:8px;border-radius:4px;'></pre>
</div>
JavaScript 
const log = document.getElementById('resource-log');

function loadScript(src, label) {
const script = document.createElement('script');
script.src = src;

script.onload = function() {
log.textContent = label + ' - loaded successfully at ' + new Date().toLocaleTimeString();
};

script.onerror = function() {
log.textContent = label + ' - FAILED to load! (script not found or network error)';
};

document.head.appendChild(script);
log.textContent = label + ' - downloading...';
}

document.getElementById('load-ext-script').onclick = function() {
loadScript('https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/seedrandom/3.0.5/seedrandom.min.js', 'Seedrandom (valid)');
this.disabled = true;
this.textContent = 'Loaded';
};

document.getElementById('load-fail-script').onclick = function() {
loadScript('https://example.com/nonexistent.js', 'Nonexistent script');
this.disabled = true;
this.textContent = 'Tried';
};
Live Output Window

Loading Stylesheets

const link = document.createElement('link');
link.rel = 'stylesheet';
link.href = 'styles.css';

link.onload = function() {
  console.log('Stylesheet loaded');
};

link.onerror = function() {
  console.error('Stylesheet failed to load');
};

document.head.appendChild(link);

Handling Multiple Resources with Promises

Wrap resource loading in a Promise for cleaner async handling:

function loadImage(src) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const img = new Image();
    img.onload = () => resolve(img);
    img.onerror = () => reject(new Error('Failed to load: ' + src));
    img.src = src;
  });
}

// Usage
loadImage('photo.jpg')
  .then(img => document.body.appendChild(img))
  .catch(err => console.error(err));
Demo: Promise-based Resource Loading
HTML 
<div id='promise-demo'>
<p><button id='promise-load'>Load Image with Promise</button></p>
<div id='promise-container'></div>
<pre id='promise-log' style='background:#f1f5f9;padding:8px;border-radius:4px;'></pre>
</div>
JavaScript 
const log = document.getElementById('promise-log');
const container = document.getElementById('promise-container');

function loadImage(src) {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
const img = new Image();
img.onload = () => resolve(img);
img.onerror = () => reject(new Error('Failed to load image'));
img.src = src;
log.textContent = 'Starting load: ' + src;
});
}

document.getElementById('promise-load').onclick = function() {
container.innerHTML = '';
loadImage('https://picsum.photos/300/200?random=' + Math.random())
.then(img => {
container.appendChild(img);
log.textContent = 'Image loaded! ' + img.naturalWidth + 'x' + img.naturalHeight;
})
.catch(err => {
log.textContent = 'Error: ' + err.message;
});
};
Live Output Window

Lazy Loading Images

Modern browsers support native lazy loading:

<img src="photo.jpg" loading="lazy" alt="Photo">

Values: lazy (load when near viewport), eager (load immediately).

Preloading Critical Resources

Use <link rel="preload"> in HTML to hint to the browser:

<link rel="preload" href="font.woff2" as="font" crossorigin>
<link rel="preload" href="hero.jpg" as="image">
// Dynamic preload
const link = document.createElement('link');
link.rel = 'preload';
link.href = 'critical.js';
link.as = 'script';
document.head.appendChild(link);

The load Event on Window

The global window.onload fires when all resources on the page are loaded:

window.addEventListener('load', function() {
  // Everything is loaded - images, styles, scripts, fonts
  console.log('Page fully loaded');
});

Key Takeaways

  • Every resource supports onload (success) and onerror (failure)
  • Use new Image() + onload to preload images and get dimensions
  • Wrap onload/onerror in a Promise for clean async handling
  • Native loading="lazy" defers off-screen image loading
  • link rel="preload" hints the browser to fetch critical resources early
  • window.addEventListener('load') fires when all page resources are loaded
  • Always handle onerror - resources fail (network issues, wrong URLs)

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