Do browsers guess what image to load?

[higgsyd]

I have a page with a broken link but somehow the Browser loads the correct image

Go to   http://v38.ancestry.higgsy.co.uk

In the menu bar click Archive (ignore the drop-down).  In the Birth Certificates list (sorted alphabetically) Look for Patterson, Christopher.  If you hover over the 034 link you will see it points to …034_147_Patterson_Edward_Lawrence_birth.jpg

Now that image does not exist on the remote server and my Dreamweaver has flagged it as a broken link

But when you click it, it loads the image ok, using the correctly spelled link

Let me put the two links here for comparison

     034_147_Patterson_Edward_Lawrence_birth.jpg

     034_1847_Patterson_Edward_Lawrence_birth.jpg

We see the bad link is missing the character 8

Is the Browser looking for the first link, not finding it, and somehow looking for, and finding,  an almost similar link?  Do Browsers do this?  How else is it finding the right image?

[osgood_]

Well the correctly named image including the 8 is on the server. I cant hover over the 034 as lm on a mobile device but maybe the info is being truncated or maybe you have the wrong image name in a tootip or something and no the browser wont guess at an image name, if it isnt on the server when it tries to find the image it wont show it.

[Jon Fritz]

You do have the wrong link, but as your server starts loading the bad location, it redirects to the right file.

[osgood_]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jon+Fritz+II  wrote

You do have the wrong link, but as your server starts loading the bad location, it redirects to the right file.

That's interesting it appears the server IS being tolerant of a couple of characters which are missing.......never come across that one before.

I wonder what one it would choose if you had:

034_147_Patterson_Edward_Lawrence_birth.jpg

034_147_Paterson_Edwards_Lawrence_birth.jpg (this being the real one and the one above the incorrect one)

Whilst on the face of it it seems like a helpful idea I'm not sure as it might lead to the server gathering the incorrect image if file names very similar...

[Jon Fritz]

Just to clarify, what's happening on your site is definitely not a browser function, but something being done by your server.

You should discuss what's happening with your server admin. They should be able to tell you what setting they've implemented that's allowing a bad link to redirect to a good file.