Refresh image with a new one at the same url

I am accessing a link on my site that will provide a new image each time it is accessed.

The issue I am running into is that if I try to load the image in the background and then update the one on the page, the image doesn't change--though it is updated when I reload the page.

var newImage = new Image();
newImage.src = "http://localhost/image.jpg";

function updateImage()
{
if(newImage.complete) {
	document.getElementById("theText").src = newImage.src;
	newImage = new Image();
	number++;
	newImage.src = "http://localhost/image/id/image.jpg?time=" + new Date();
}
	
	setTimeout(updateImage, 1000);
}

Headers as FireFox sees them:

HTTP/1.x 200 OK
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate
Pragma: no-cache
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: image/jpeg
Expires: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 14:19:41 GMT
Server: Microsoft-HTTPAPI/1.0
Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:06:04 GMT

I need to force a refresh of just that image on the page. Any ideas?

Try adding a cachebreaker at the end of the url:

newImage.src = "http://localhost/image.jpg?" + new Date().getTime();

This will append the current timestamp automatically when you are creating the image, and it will make the browser look again for the image instead of retrieving the one in the cache.

I've seen a lot of variation in answers for how to do this, so I thought I'd summarize them here (plus add a 4th method of my own invention):

---

(1) Add a unique cache-busting query parameter to the URL, such as:

newImage.src = "image.jpg?t=" + new Date().getTime();

Pros: 100% reliable, quick & easy to understand and implement.

Cons: Bypasses caching altogether, meaning unnecessary delays and bandwidth use whenever the image doesn't change between views. Will potentially fill browser cache (and any intermediate caches) with many, many copies of exactly the same image! Also, requires modifying image URL.

When to use: Use when image is constantly changing, such as for a live webcam feed. If you use this method, make sure to serve the images themselves with Cache-control: no-cache HTTP headers!!! (Often this can be set up using a .htaccess file). Otherwise you'll be progressively filling caches up with old versions of the image!

---

(2) Add query parameter to the URL that changes only when the file does, e.g.:

echo '<img src="image.jpg?m=' . filemtime('image.jpg') . '">';

(That's PHP server-side code, but the important point here is just that a ?m=[file last-modified time] querystring is appended to the filename).

Pros: 100% reliable, quick & easy to understand and implement, and preserves caching advantages perfectly.

Cons: Requires modifying the image URL. Also, a little more work for the server - it has to get access to the file-last-modified time. Also, requires server-side information, so not suitable for a purely client-side-only solution to check for a refreshed image.

When to use: When you want to cache images, but may need to update them at the server end from time to time without changing the filename itself. AND when you can easily ensure that the correct querystring is added to every image instance in your HTML.

---

(3) Serve your images with the header Cache-control: max-age=0, must-revalidate, and add a unique memcache-busting fragment identifier to the URL, such as:

newImage.src = "image.jpg#" + new Date().getTime();

The idea here is that the cache-control header puts images in the browser cache, but immediately markes them stale, so that and every time they are re-displayed the browser must check with the server to see if they've changed. This ensures that the browser's HTTP cache always returns the latest copy of the image. However, browsers will often re-use an in-memory copy of an image if they have one, and not even check their HTTP cache in that case. To prevent this, a fragment identifier is used: Comparison of in-memory image src's includes the fragment identifier, but it gets stripped of before querying the HTTP cache. (So, e.g., image.jpg#A and image.jpg#B might both be displayed from the image.jpg entry in the browser's HTTP cache, but image.jpg#B would never be displayed using in-memory retained image data from when image.jpg#A was last displayed).

Pros: Makes proper use of HTTP caching mechanisms, and uses cached images if they haven't changed. Works for servers that choke on a querystring added to a static image URL (since servers never see fragment identifiers - they're for the browsers' own use only).

Cons: Relies on somewhat dubious (or at least poorly documented) behaviour of browsers, in regard to images with fragment identifiers in their URLs (However, I've tested this successfully in FF27, Chrome33, and IE11). Does still send a revalidation request to the server for every image view, which may be overkill if images only change rarely and/or latency is a big issue (since you need to wait for the revalidation response even when the cached image is still good). Requires modifying image URLs.

When to use: Use when images may change frequently, or need to be refreshed intermittently by the client without server-side script involvement, but where you still want the advantage of caching. For example, polling a live webcam that updates an image irregularly every few minutes. Alternatively, use instead of (1) or (2) if your server doesn't allow querystrings on static image URLs.

[EDIT 2021: No longer works on recent Chrome & Edge: The internal memcache in those browsers now ignores fragment identifiers (maybe since the switch to the Blink engine?). But see method (4) below, it's now MUCH easier on those two browsers specifically, so consider combining this method with a simplified version of (4) to cover those two browsers].

---

(4) Forcibly refresh a particular image using Javascript, by first loading it into a hidden <iframe> and then calling location.reload(true) on the iframe's contentWindow.

The steps are:

• Load the image to be refreshed into a hidden iframe. [EDIT 2021: For Chrome and Edge, load a HTML page with an <img> tag, not the raw image file]. This is just a setup step - it can be done long in advance the actual refresh, if desired. It doesn't even matter if the image fails to load at this stage!

• [EDIT 2021: This step is now unnecessary in recent Chrome and Edge]. Once that's done, blank out all copies of that image on your page(s) or anywhere in any DOM nodes (even off-page ones stored in javascript variables). This is necessary because the browser may otherwise display the image from a stale in-memory copy (IE11 especially does this): You need to ensure all in-memory copies are cleared, before refreshing the HTTP cache. If other javascript code is running asynchronously, you may also need to prevent that code from creating new copies of the to-be-refreshed image in the meantime.

• Call iframe.contentWindow.location.reload(true). The true forces a cache bypass, reloading directly from the server and overwriting the existing cached copy.

• [EDIT 2021: This step is now unnecessary in recent Chrome and Edge - on those browsers, existing images will just automatically update themselves after the previous step!] Once it's finished re-loading, restore the blanked images. They should now display the fresh version from the server!

For same-domain images, you can load the image into the iframe directly. [EDIT 2021: Not on Chrome, Edge]. For cross-domain images, you have to instead load a HTML page from your domain that contains the image in an <img> tag, otherwise you'll get an "Access Denied" error when trying to call iframe.contentWindow.reload(...). [Do this for Chrome & Edge also].

Pros: Works just like the image.reload() function you wish the DOM had! Allows images to by cached normally (even with in-the-future expiry dates if you want them, thus avoiding frequent revalidation). Allows you to refresh a particular image without altering the URLs for that image on the current page, or on any other pages, using only client-side code.

Cons: Relies on Javascript. Not 100% guaranteed to work properly in every browser (I've tested this successfully in FF27, Chrome33, and IE11 though). Very complicated relative to the other methods. [EDIT 2021: Unless you only need recent Chrome & Edge support, in which case it's very much simpler].

When to use: When you have a collection of basically static images that you'd like cached, but you still need to be able to update them occasionally and get immediate visual feedback that the update took place. (Especially when just refreshing the whole browser page wouldn't work, as in some web apps built on AJAX for example). And when methods (1)-(3) aren't feasible because (for whatever reason) you can't change all the URLs that might potentially display the image you need to have updated. (Note that using those 3 methods the image will be refreshed, but if another page then tries to displays that image without the appropriate querystring or fragment identifier, it may show an older version instead).

The details of implementing this in a fairy robust and flexible manner are given below:

Let's assume your website contains a blank 1x1 pixel .gif at the URL path /img/1x1blank.gif, and also has the following one-line PHP script (only required for applying forced refresh to cross-domain images, and can be rewritten in any server-side scripting language, of course) at the URL path /echoimg.php:

<img src="<?=htmlspecialchars(@$_GET['src'],ENT_COMPAT|ENT_HTML5,'UTF-8')?>">

Then, here's a realistic implementation of how you might do all this in Javascript. It looks a bit complicated, but there's a lot of comments, and the important function is just forceImgReload() - the first two just blank and un-blank images, and should be designed to work efficiently with your own HTML, so code them as works best for you; much of the complications in them may be unnecessary for your website:

// This function should blank all images that have a matching src, by changing their src property to /img/1x1blank.gif.
// ##### You should code the actual contents of this function according to your page design, and what images there are on them!!! #####
// Optionally it may return an array (or other collection or data structure) of those images affected.
// This can be used by imgReloadRestore() to restore them later, if that's an efficient way of doing it (otherwise, you don't need to return anything).
// NOTE that the src argument here is just passed on from forceImgReload(), and MAY be a relative URI;
// However, be aware that if you're reading the src property of an <img> DOM object, you'll always get back a fully-qualified URI,
// even if the src attribute was a relative one in the original HTML.  So watch out if trying to compare the two!
// NOTE that if your page design makes it more efficient to obtain (say) an image id or list of ids (of identical images) *first*, and only then get the image src,
// you can pass this id or list data to forceImgReload() along with (or instead of) a src argument: just add an extra or replacement parameter for this information to
// this function, to imgReloadRestore(), to forceImgReload(), and to the anonymous function returned by forceImgReload() (and make it overwrite the earlier parameter variable from forceImgReload() if truthy), as appropriate.
function imgReloadBlank(src)
{
  // ##### Everything here is provisional on the way the pages are designed, and what images they contain; what follows is for example purposes only!
  // ##### For really simple pages containing just a single image that's always the one being refreshed, this function could be as simple as just the one line:
  // ##### document.getElementById("myImage").src = "/img/1x1blank.gif";

  var blankList = [],
      fullSrc = /* Fully qualified (absolute) src - i.e. prepend protocol, server/domain, and path if not present in src */,
      imgs, img, i;

  for each (/* window accessible from this one, i.e. this window, and child frames/iframes, the parent window, anything opened via window.open(), and anything recursively reachable from there */)
  {
    // get list of matching images:
    imgs = theWindow.document.body.getElementsByTagName("img");
    for (i = imgs.length; i--;) if ((img = imgs[i]).src===fullSrc)  // could instead use body.querySelectorAll(), to check both tag name and src attribute, which would probably be more efficient, where supported
    {
      img.src = "/img/1x1blank.gif";  // blank them
      blankList.push(img);            // optionally, save list of blanked images to make restoring easy later on
    }
  }

  for each (/* img DOM node held only by javascript, for example in any image-caching script */) if (img.src===fullSrc)
  {
    img.src = "/img/1x1blank.gif";   // do the same as for on-page images!
    blankList.push(img);
  }

  // ##### If necessary, do something here that tells all accessible windows not to create any *new* images with src===fullSrc, until further notice,
  // ##### (or perhaps to create them initially blank instead and add them to blankList).
  // ##### For example, you might have (say) a global object window.top.blankedSrces as a propery of your topmost window, initially set = {}.  Then you could do:
  // #####
  // #####     var bs = window.top.blankedSrces;
  // #####     if (bs.hasOwnProperty(src)) bs[src]++; else bs[src] = 1;
  // #####
  // ##### And before creating a new image using javascript, you'd first ensure that (blankedSrces.hasOwnProperty(src)) was false...
  // ##### Note that incrementing a counter here rather than just setting a flag allows for the possibility that multiple forced-reloads of the same image are underway at once, or are overlapping.

  return blankList;   // optional - only if using blankList for restoring back the blanked images!  This just gets passed in to imgReloadRestore(), it isn't used otherwise.
}




// This function restores all blanked images, that were blanked out by imgReloadBlank(src) for the matching src argument.
// ##### You should code the actual contents of this function according to your page design, and what images there are on them, as well as how/if images are dimensioned, etc!!! #####
function imgReloadRestore(src,blankList,imgDim,loadError);
{
  // ##### Everything here is provisional on the way the pages are designed, and what images they contain; what follows is for example purposes only!
  // ##### For really simple pages containing just a single image that's always the one being refreshed, this function could be as simple as just the one line:
  // ##### document.getElementById("myImage").src = src;

  // ##### if in imgReloadBlank() you did something to tell all accessible windows not to create any *new* images with src===fullSrc until further notice, retract that setting now!
  // ##### For example, if you used the global object window.top.blankedSrces as described there, then you could do:
  // #####
  // #####     var bs = window.top.blankedSrces;
  // #####     if (bs.hasOwnProperty(src)&&--bs[src]) return; else delete bs[src];  // return here means don't restore until ALL forced reloads complete.

  var i, img, width = imgDim&&imgDim[0], height = imgDim&&imgDim[1];
  if (width) width += "px";
  if (height) height += "px";

  if (loadError) {/* If you want, do something about an image that couldn't load, e.g: src = "/img/brokenImg.jpg"; or alert("Couldn't refresh image from server!"); */}

  // If you saved & returned blankList in imgReloadBlank(), you can just use this to restore:

  for (i = blankList.length; i--;)
  {
    (img = blankList[i]).src = src;
    if (width) img.style.width = width;
    if (height) img.style.height = height;
  }
}




// Force an image to be reloaded from the server, bypassing/refreshing the cache.
// due to limitations of the browser API, this actually requires TWO load attempts - an initial load into a hidden iframe, and then a call to iframe.contentWindow.location.reload(true);
// If image is from a different domain (i.e. cross-domain restrictions are in effect, you must set isCrossDomain = true, or the script will crash!
// imgDim is a 2-element array containing the image x and y dimensions, or it may be omitted or null; it can be used to set a new image size at the same time the image is updated, if applicable.
// if "twostage" is true, the first load will occur immediately, and the return value will be a function
// that takes a boolean parameter (true to proceed with the 2nd load (including the blank-and-reload procedure), false to cancel) and an optional updated imgDim.
// This allows you to do the first load early... for example during an upload (to the server) of the image you want to (then) refresh.
function forceImgReload(src, isCrossDomain, imgDim, twostage)
{
  var blankList, step = 0,                                // step: 0 - started initial load, 1 - wait before proceeding (twostage mode only), 2 - started forced reload, 3 - cancelled
      iframe = window.document.createElement("iframe"),   // Hidden iframe, in which to perform the load+reload.
      loadCallback = function(e)                          // Callback function, called after iframe load+reload completes (or fails).
      {                                                   // Will be called TWICE unless twostage-mode process is cancelled. (Once after load, once after reload).
        if (!step)  // initial load just completed.  Note that it doesn't actually matter if this load succeeded or not!
        {
          if (twostage) step = 1;  // wait for twostage-mode proceed or cancel; don't do anything else just yet
          else { step = 2; blankList = imgReloadBlank(src); iframe.contentWindow.location.reload(true); }  // initiate forced-reload
        }
        else if (step===2)   // forced re-load is done
        {
          imgReloadRestore(src,blankList,imgDim,(e||window.event).type==="error");    // last parameter checks whether loadCallback was called from the "load" or the "error" event.
          if (iframe.parentNode) iframe.parentNode.removeChild(iframe);
        }
      }
  iframe.style.display = "none";
  window.parent.document.body.appendChild(iframe);    // NOTE: if this is done AFTER setting src, Firefox MAY fail to fire the load event!
  iframe.addEventListener("load",loadCallback,false);
  iframe.addEventListener("error",loadCallback,false);
  iframe.src = (isCrossDomain ? "/echoimg.php?src="+encodeURIComponent(src) : src);  // If src is cross-domain, script will crash unless we embed the image in a same-domain html page (using server-side script)!!!
  return (twostage
    ? function(proceed,dim)
      {
        if (!twostage) return;
        twostage = false;
        if (proceed)
        {
          imgDim = (dim||imgDim);  // overwrite imgDim passed in to forceImgReload() - just in case you know the correct img dimensions now, but didn't when forceImgReload() was called.
          if (step===1) { step = 2; blankList = imgReloadBlank(src); iframe.contentWindow.location.reload(true); }
        }
        else
        {
          step = 3;
          if (iframe.contentWindow.stop) iframe.contentWindow.stop();
          if (iframe.parentNode) iframe.parentNode.removeChild(iframe);
        }
      }
    : null);
}

Then, to force a refresh of an image located on the same domain as your page, you can just do:

forceImgReload("myimage.jpg");

To refresh an image from somewhere else (cross-domain):

forceImgReload("http://someother.server.com/someimage.jpg", true);

A more advanced application might be to reload an image after uploading a new version to your server, preparing the initial stage of the reload process simultaneous with the upload, to minimize the visible reload delay to the user. If you're doing the upload via AJAX, and the server is returning a very simple JSON array [success, width, height] then your code might look something like this:

// fileForm is a reference to the form that has a the <input typ="file"> on it, for uploading.
// serverURL is the url at which the uploaded image will be accessible from, once uploaded.
// The response from uploadImageToServer.php is a JSON array [success, width, height]. (A boolean and two ints).
function uploadAndRefreshCache(fileForm, serverURL)
{
  var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(),
      proceedWithImageRefresh = forceImgReload(serverURL, false, null, true);
  xhr.addEventListener("load", function(){ var arr = JSON.parse(xhr.responseText); if (!(arr&&arr[0])) { proceedWithImageRefresh(false); doSomethingOnUploadFailure(...); } else { proceedWithImageRefresh(true,[arr[1],ar[2]]); doSomethingOnUploadSuccess(...); }});
  xhr.addEventListener("error", function(){ proceedWithImageRefresh(false); doSomethingOnUploadError(...); });
  xhr.addEventListener("abort", function(){ proceedWithImageRefresh(false); doSomethingOnUploadAborted(...); });
  // add additional event listener(s) to track upload progress for graphical progress bar, etc...
  xhr.open("post","uploadImageToServer.php");
  xhr.send(new FormData(fileForm));
}

---

A final note: Although this topic is about images, it potentially applies to other kinds of files or resources also. For example, preventing the use of stale script or css files, or perhaps even refreshing updated PDF documents (using (4) only if set up to open in-browser). Method (4) might require some changes to the above javascript, in these cases.

As an alternative to...

newImage.src = "http://localhost/image.jpg?" + new Date().getTime();

...it seems that...

newImage.src = "http://localhost/image.jpg#" + new Date().getTime();

...is sufficient to fool the browser cache without bypassing any upstream caches, assuming you returned the correct Cache-Control headers. Although you can use...

Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate

...you lose the benefits of the If-Modified-Since or If-None-Match headers, so something like...

Cache-Control: max-age=0, must-revalidate

...should prevent the browser from re-downloading the entire image if it hasn't actually changed. Tested and working on IE, Firefox, and Chrome. Annoyingly it fails on Safari unless you use...

Cache-Control: no-store

...although this still may be preferable to filling upstream caches with hundreds of identical images, particularly when they're running on your own server. ;-)

Update (2014-09-28): Nowadays it looks like Cache-Control: no-store is needed for Chrome as well.

After creating the new image, are you removing the old image from the DOM and replacing it with the new one?

You could be grabbing new images every updateImage call, but not adding them to the page.

There are a number of ways to do it. Something like this would work.

function updateImage()
{
    var image = document.getElementById("theText");
    if(image.complete) {
        var new_image = new Image();
        //set up the new image
        new_image.id = "theText";
        new_image.src = image.src;           
        // insert new image and remove old
        image.parentNode.insertBefore(new_image,image);
        image.parentNode.removeChild(image);
    }

    setTimeout(updateImage, 1000);
}

After getting that working, if there are still problems it is probably a caching issue like the other answers talk about.

You can simply use fetch with the cache option set to 'reload' to update the cache:

fetch("my-image-url.jpg", {cache: 'reload', mode: 'no-cors'})

The following function will update the cache and reload your image everywhere in your page:

const reloadImg = url =>
  fetch(url, { cache: 'reload', mode: 'no-cors' })
  .then(() => document.body.querySelectorAll(`img[src='${url}']`)
              .forEach(img => img.src = url))

It returns a promise so you can use it like await reloadImg("my-image-url.jpg") if you wish.

These days the fetch API is available almost everywhere (except on IE, of course).

<img src='someurl.com/someimage.ext' onload='imageRefresh(this, 1000);'>

Then below in some javascript

<script language='javascript'>
 function imageRefresh(img, timeout) {
    setTimeout(function() {
     var d = new Date;
     var http = img.src;
     if (http.indexOf("&d=") != -1) { http = http.split("&d=")[0]; } 

     img.src = http + '&d=' + d.getTime();
    }, timeout);
  }
</script>

And so what this does is, when the image loads, schedules it to be reloaded in 1 second. I'm using this on a page with home security cameras of varying type.

One answer is to hackishly add some get query parameter like has been suggested.

A better answer is to emit a couple of extra options in your HTTP header.

Pragma: no-cache
Expires: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 14:19:41 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate

By providing a date in the past, it won't be cached by the browser. Cache-Control was added in HTTP/1.1 and the must-revalidate tag indicates that proxies should never serve up an old image even under extenuating circumstances, and the Pragma: no-cache isn't really necessary for current modern browsers/caches but may help with some crufty broken old implementations.

What I ended up doing was having the server map any request for an image at that directory to the source that I was trying to update. I then had my timer append a number onto the end of the name so the DOM would see it as a new image and load it.

E.g.

http://localhost/image.jpg
//and
http://localhost/image01.jpg

will request the same image generation code but it will look like different images to the browser.

var newImage = new Image();
newImage.src = "http://localhost/image.jpg";
var count = 0;
function updateImage()
{
    if(newImage.complete) {
        document.getElementById("theText").src = newImage.src;
        newImage = new Image();
        newImage.src = "http://localhost/image/id/image" + count++ + ".jpg";
    }
    setTimeout(updateImage, 1000);
}

I had a requirement: 1) can't add any ?var=xx to the image 2) it should work cross-domain

I really like the #4 option in this answer with one but:

• it has problems working with crossdomain reliably (and it requires touching the server code).

My quick and dirty way is:

1. Create hidden iframe
2. Load the current page to it (yeah the whole page)
3. iframe.contentWindow.location.reload(true);
4. Re-set the image source to itself

Here it is

function RefreshCachedImage() {
	if (window.self !== window.top) return; //prevent recursion
	var $img = $("#MYIMAGE");
	var src = $img.attr("src");
	var iframe = document.createElement("iframe");
	iframe.style.display = "none";
	window.parent.document.body.appendChild(iframe);
	iframe.src = window.location.href;
	setTimeout(function () {
		iframe.contentWindow.location.reload(true);
		setTimeout(function () {
			$img.removeAttr("src").attr("src", src);
		}, 2000);
	}, 2000);
}

Yeah, I know, setTimeout... You have to change that to proper onload-events.

function reloadImage(imageId)
{
   path = '../showImage.php?cache='; //for example
   imageObject = document.getElementById(imageId);
   imageObject.src = path + (new Date()).getTime();
}

<img src='../showImage.php' id='myimage' />

<br/>

<input type='button' onclick="reloadImage('myimage')" />

document.getElementById("img-id").src = document.getElementById("img-id").src

set its own src as its src.

This answer is based on several of the above answers but unifies and simplifies them a little and casts the answer as a JavaScript function.

function refreshCachedImage(img_id) {
    var img = document.getElementById(img_id);
    img.src = img.src; // trick browser into reload
};

I needed a solution to the problem of animated SVGs not restarting after they played through the first time.

This trick also works on other media like audio and video as well.

Try using a worthless querystring to make it a unique url:

function updateImage()
{
    if(newImage.complete) {
        document.getElementById("theText").src = newImage.src;
        newImage = new Image();
        number++;
        newImage.src = "http://localhost/image.jpg?" + new Date();
    }

    setTimeout(updateImage, 1000);
}

Heavily based on Doin's #4 code, the below example simplifies that code a great bit utilising document.write instead of src in the iframe to support CORS. Also only focuses on busting the browser cache, not reloading every image on the page.

Below is written in typescript and uses the angular [$q][1] promise library, just fyi, but should be easy enough to port to vanilla javascript. Method is meant to live inside a typescript class.

Returns a promise that will be resolved when the iframe has completed reloading. Not heavily tested, but works well for us.

    mmForceImgReload(src: string): ng.IPromise<void> {
        var deferred = $q.defer<void>();
        var iframe = window.document.createElement("iframe");

        var firstLoad = true;
        var loadCallback = (e) => {
            if (firstLoad) {
                firstLoad = false;
                iframe.contentWindow.location.reload(true);
            } else {
                if (iframe.parentNode) iframe.parentNode.removeChild(iframe);
                deferred.resolve();
            }
        }
        iframe.style.display = "none";
        window.parent.document.body.appendChild(iframe);
        iframe.addEventListener("load", loadCallback, false);
        iframe.addEventListener("error", loadCallback, false);
        var doc = iframe.contentWindow.document;
        doc.open();
        doc.write('<html><head><title></title></head><body><img src="' + src + '"></body></html>');
        doc.close();
        return deferred.promise;
    }

[1]: https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/service/$q "Angular promise library"

I improved the script from AlexMA for showing my webcam on a web page wich periodically uploads a new image with the same name. I had issues that sometimes the image was flickering because of a broken image or not complete (up)loaded image. To prevent flickering I check the natural height of the image because the size of my webcam image did not change. Only if the loaded image height fits the original image height the full image will be shown on page.

  <h3>Webcam</h3>
  <p align="center">
    <img id="webcam" title="Webcam" onload="updateImage();" src="https://www.your-domain.com/webcam/current.jpg" alt="webcam image" width="900" border="0" />
  
    <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">
  
    // off-screen image to preload next image
    var newImage = new Image();
    newImage.src = "https://www.your-domain.com/webcam/current.jpg";

    // remember the image height to prevent showing broken images
    var height = newImage.naturalHeight;

    function updateImage()
    {
        // for sure if the first image was a broken image
        if(newImage.naturalHeight > height)
        {
          height = newImage.naturalHeight;
        }
    
        // off-screen image loaded and the image was not broken
        if(newImage.complete && newImage.naturalHeight == height) 
        {
          // show the preloaded image on page
          document.getElementById("webcam").src = newImage.src;
        }
    
        // preload next image with cachebreaker
        newImage.src = "https://www.your-domain.com/webcam/current.jpg?time=" + new Date().getTime();
    
        // refresh image (set the refresh interval to half of webcam refresh, 
        // in my case the webcam refreshes every 5 seconds)
        setTimeout(updateImage, 2500);
    }
  
    </script>
</p>

Place a second copy of the image in the same spot, then remove the original image.

function refreshImg(ele){
    ele.insertAdjacentHTML('beforebegin',ele.outerHTML);
    ele.parentNode.removeChild(ele);
}

This will effectively refresh the image.

Crossbrowser too. insertAdjacentHTML, outerHTML, parentNode, and removeChild are all crossbrowser.

Performance wise, performance loss will most likely be negligible in most cases. @Paolo Bergantino's answer is probably better than this function. Only one DOM element is affected using his answer. Two elements with this function.

I had this same issue using the Unsplash random image feature. The idea of adding a dummy query string to the end of the URL is correct, but in this instance a completely random parameter doesn't work (I tried it). I can imagine it's the same for some other services too, but for unsplash the parameter needs to be sig, so your image URL would be, for example, http://example.net/image.jpg?sig=RANDOM where random is a random string that will NOT be the same when you update it. I used Math.random()*100 but date is suitable too.

You need to do the above because without it, the browser will see that the image at said path has already been loaded, and will use that cached image to speed up loading.

See https://github.com/unsplash/unsplash-source-js/issues/9

I solved this problem by sending the data back through a servlet.

response.setContentType("image/png");
response.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache, must-revalidate");
response.setDateHeader("Expires", 0);

BufferedImage img = ImageIO.read(new File(imageFileName));

ImageIO.write(img, "png", response.getOutputStream());

Then from the page you just give it the servlet with some params to grab the correct image file.

<img src="YourServlet?imageFileName=imageNum1">

Here's my solution. It's very simple. The frame scheduling could be better.

<!doctype html>
<html>
	<head>
		<meta charset="utf-8">		
		<title>Image Refresh</title>
	</head>
	
	<body>
	
	<!-- Get the initial image. -->
	<img id="frame" src="frame.jpg">
	
	<script>		
		// Use an off-screen image to load the next frame.
		var img = new Image();
		
		// When it is loaded...
		img.addEventListener("load", function() {
		
			// Set the on-screen image to the same source. This should be instant because
			// it is already loaded.
			document.getElementById("frame").src = img.src;
			
			// Schedule loading the next frame.
			setTimeout(function() {
				img.src = "frame.jpg?" + (new Date).getTime();
			}, 1000/15); // 15 FPS (more or less)
		})

		// Start the loading process.
		img.src = "frame.jpg?" + (new Date).getTime();
	</script>
	</body>
</html>

The following code is useful to refresh image when a button is clicked.

function reloadImage(imageId) {
   imgName = 'vishnu.jpg'; //for example
   imageObject = document.getElementById(imageId);
   imageObject.src = imgName;
}

<img src='vishnu.jpg' id='myimage' />

<input type='button' onclick="reloadImage('myimage')" />

No need for new Date().getTime() shenanigans. You can trick the browser by having an invisible dummy image and using jQuery .load(), then creating a new image each time:

<img src="" id="dummy", style="display:none;" />  <!-- dummy img -->
<div id="pic"></div>

<script type="text/javascript">
  var url = whatever;
  // You can repeat the following as often as you like with the same url
  $("#dummy").load(url);
  var image = new Image();
  image.src = url;
  $("#pic").html("").append(image);
</script>

Simple solution: add this header to the response:

Cache-control: no-store

Why this works is clearly explained at this authoritative page: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Cache-Control

It also explains why no-cache does not work.

Other answers do not work because:

Caching.delete is about a new cache that you may create for off-line work, see: https://web.dev/cache-api-quick-guide/

Fragments using a # in the URL do not work because the # tells the browser to not send a request to the server.

A cache-buster with a random part added to the url works, but will also fill the browser cache. In my app, I wanted to download a 5 MB picture every few seconds from a web cam. It will take just an hour or less to completely freeze your pc. I still don't know why the browser cache is not limited to a reasonable max, but this is definitely a disadvantage.

I used the below concept of first binding the image with a false(buffer) url and next binding it with the valid url.

imgcover.ImageUrl = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["profileLargeImgPath"] + "Myapp_CoverPic_" + userid + "Buffer.jpg";

imgcover.ImageUrl = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["profileLargeImgPath"] + "Myapp_CoverPic_" + userid + ".jpg";

This way, I am forcing the browser to refresh with valid url.