External CSS images won't load - css

Question

Good day.
My structure is like this:
/
index.html
style/
main.css
images/
test/
test.html
/style/main.css says something like this:
body {
background-image: url('/images/SomeImage.png');
background-color: #000;
}
/index.html has a link to this CSS file, but, as the title says, no image will load. But it's connected though, cause the background is actually black, so the rest of the style (but images) does work.
Also, if I write the same style internally into /index.html the background will load.
Also, I created /test/test.html which says nothing but
<img src="/images/SomeImage.png" />
and the image is displayed on that page.
So, obviously, for some reason my /style/main.css can't reach files, that any other file from any other location reaches. Why does this happen? There's clearly nothing wrong with the syntax. I'm lost.

Answer 1

add ../ to the beginning of /images so it read ../images/imagename.jpg
Here's what your code should be:
body {
background-image: url('../images/SomeImage.png');
background-color: #000;
}

Answer 2

Because your image is in another folder (thats a level up than your style sheet), you need to start with "../" for a level up folder in hierarchy relative to the style sheet. So you need a relative URL:
background-image: url('../images/SomeImage.png');

Answer 3

Try to copy webpage, css and example image in one folder temporarily. Then use only image name for url a see what happens. If it works, it will be the image path, if not something else.. possibly position.. is this complete css you are posting?

Answer 4

Initially, it looks like your code is fine.
So how do you know the image isn't loading? Look in your browser's developer tools to see if the image is loading, or returning an error, or not even being referenced. My guess here would be that it is loading, but not display because of something in your CSS.

Answer 5

if you are in /styles/style.css you need to add:
../ 2 levels back to get to the root folder.
So as Rokin answered :
background-image: url('../images/SomeImage.png');
is the way to do it.
To link your CSS within your index file use the following:
<link href="./style/style.css" rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
./ 1 level back within the index.html to reach the root folder.
In addition your problem might also be a file permission problem, I always face this issue when i download images from my email and use them directly.
If you are working locally on a mac:
- Right click on the selected image
- click on **get info**
- In sharing and permissions, make sure that the **everyone** has the **Read only** permission instead of **No access**
If you are working directly on a live server:
- login using FTP (with any ftp client such as File Zilla)
- Go to the selected image
- Right click and select file permissions
- set permissions to : **664**

Answer 6

Ok, so basically, I replaced the not-working /style/main.css with the copy of it (test.css - described in post comments) and now it works. Why is still the question, but the problem is kinda solved I guess.

Answer 7

Same with me, I guess images that used in css must be in the same folder as css file. I tried every possible solution while checking with the browser tool and the only thing that works is when I put the image and stylesheet in the same folder.

Answer 8

I am having the same problem. Working with Visual Studio Community.
I went inspect elements in browser and found that the file directory "automatically" (i did not set it this way) says that my image folder is nested inside my css folder. dont know why yet... so I then went and moved my image folder into my css folder seeing that this is what my browser showed me in the dev tools...
so maybe for some reason when working with css your images inside your image folder should be located in your css folder and not the complete Webpage Folder..it worked.