Webpack loads wrong images to dist directory

Question

My webpack.config.js file

const path = require('path');

const HtmlWebPackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin');
const MiniCssExtractPlugin = require('mini-css-extract-plugin');
const { CleanWebpackPlugin } = require('clean-webpack-plugin');
const CopyWebpackPlugin = require('copy-webpack-plugin');

module.exports = {
  entry: {
    index: './src/js/index.js',
  },

  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.js$/,
        exclude: /node_modules/,
        use: ['babel-loader'],
      },
      {
        test: /\.html$/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: 'html-loader',
            options: { minimize: true },
          },
        ],
      },
      {
        test: /\.(jpg|png)$/,
        use: {
          loader: 'url-loader',
        },
      },
      {
        test: /\.(css|scss)$/,
        use: [
          MiniCssExtractPlugin.loader,
          'css-loader',
          'postcss-loader',
          'sass-loader',
        ],
      },
    ],
  },

  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, './dist'),
    filename: './js/[name].bundle.js',
  },

  plugins: [
    new HtmlWebPackPlugin({
      template: path.resolve(__dirname, './src/index.html'),
      filename: 'index.html',
      chunks: ['index'],
    }),

    new CleanWebpackPlugin(),

    new MiniCssExtractPlugin({
      filename: './css/[name].css',
    }),

    new CopyWebpackPlugin({
      patterns: [{ from: './src/assets', to: './assets' }],
    }),
  ],

  devtool: 'source-map',
  mode: 'development',
};

my files structure where the problem occurs:

what is strange, when I run npm run build in the terminal , all directories are loaded correctly I mean: background-image works, and slider directory with images is loaded, but there is also loaded some additional files with random numerical names

and those three additional .png files are loaded to my index.html as img1.png img2.png and img3.png files which not work on my website, they just do not want to load

Answer 1

I think your image files are probably double-processed, because you once just copy your assets folder to your dist output folder, and then you somewhere probably use the images with url("./someImage") or similar in your css files, which get processed by your css loader or css Mini Exctract plugin, which creates that cryptic image asset output, that then gets used in your html files, look at here: webpack.js.org/guides/asset-management/#loading-images.. I dont know why you need to copy your assets folder but that looks redundant to me...

EDIT : I'm not an expert at this, but after investigating some hours into this weird error, I realized that the paths were set correctly to the image files, but the image output that file-loader or other loaders generate with the image (like 0f9b8be78d378ad2ef78.jpg) seems to be something different, if I open them in vscode editor in standard text/binary editor, I get this line: export default __webpack_public_path__ + "someimage.jpg"; , with url-loader its the binary64 converted string with data-url(..).. so it seems its not for the purpose to use it in static html files..

I then used the recommended way to do it like this in webpack.config.js:

        {   test: /\.(jpg|png)$/, 
            type: 'asset/resource', }

after that my image was shown correctly, I have no idea what file-loader etc. is doing..

here is my final webpack.config.js:

const path = require('path')

const HtmlWebPackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin')
const MiniCssExtractPlugin = require('mini-css-extract-plugin')

module.exports = {
    entry: {
        index: './src/js/index.js',
    },
    devServer: {
        port: 5757,
        contentBase: path.resolve(__dirname, 'src'),
        publicPath: '/src',
    },

    module: {
        rules: [
            {
                test: /\.js$/,
                exclude: /node_modules/,
                use: ['babel-loader'],
            },
            {
                test: /\.html$/,
                use: [
                    {
                        loader: 'html-loader',
                        options: { minimize: true },
                    },
                ],
            },
            {
                test: /\.(jpg|png)$/,
                type: 'asset/resource',

            },
            {
                test: /\.(css|scss)$/,
                use: [
                    MiniCssExtractPlugin.loader,
                    'css-loader',
                    'postcss-loader',
                    'sass-loader',
                ],
            },
        ],
    },

    output: {
        path: path.resolve(__dirname, './build'),
        //publicPath: './assets/images',
    },

    plugins: [
        new HtmlWebPackPlugin({
            template: path.resolve(__dirname, './src/index.html'),
            filename: 'index.html',
            inject: 'body',
        }),

        new MiniCssExtractPlugin({
            filename: './css/[name].css',
        }),
    ],

    devtool: 'source-map',
    mode: 'development',
}

Answer 2

I have just solved my every problem because after using the answer from @ChillaBee , images were working correctly expect my background photo which I used in css file as url . Use the answer above but change

{
    test: /\.(jpg|png)$/,
    type: 'asset/resource',
},

to

{
    test: /\.(jpg|png)$/,
    type: 'asset/inline',
},

now images from html and css are loaded correctly

Answer 3

This is caused by Webpack 5's new Asset Modules . You can either remove url-loader and specify the asset type like so:

{
    test: /\.(jpg|png)$/,
    type: 'asset/inline',
},

Or you can disable asset modules by adding type: 'javascript/auto' to your rule:

{
  test: /\.(jpg|png)$/,
  use: {
    loader: 'url-loader',
  },
  type: 'javascript/auto'
}

See the documentation to learn more, and to see how to do this for file-loader and raw-loader as well.