What is a common reason assets are not displaying on a static website hosted in an S3 bucket?

When assets such as images, stylesheets, or scripts do not display on a static website hosted in an S3 bucket, one common reason is that Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is not enabled. CORS is a security feature implemented in web browsers to prevent malicious websites from accessing resources from different origins (domains).

If your static website is hosted on an S3 bucket and is trying to access assets (like images or scripts) from another domain or even a different bucket that does not have the appropriate CORS settings, the browser will block those requests. Enabling CORS allows you to specify which origins can access your resources, thereby ensuring that requests from your static website are permitted.

For assets to display correctly, it is crucial to configure CORS settings in the S3 bucket to allow access from the necessary origins. This is particularly important if your static website needs to load resources from different domains or buckets. Without the proper CORS configuration, the browser will not allow those resources to load, leading to the issue of them not displaying.

While other factors, such as bucket permissions or file presence, can contribute to assets not displaying, CORS misconfigurations are a common and specific cause rooted in web security policies.