Missing information in documentation: wibox.widget.imagebox
From doc: https://awesomewm.org/apidoc/widgets/wibox.widget.imagebox.html#image
string : Interpreted as a path to an image file.
Doesn't specify the supported image file formats.
Something that was present in the 4.3 documentation. From old doc: https://awesomewm.org/doc/api/classes/wibox.widget.imagebox.html#wibox.widget.imagebox.image
image: Either a string or a cairo image surface. A string is interpreted as the path to a png image file.
Possible fix (of the doc): If png keep being the only supported image file add it on the current doc. If not, list the new supported formats.
It was a known problem when I wrote that doc. The reason why I did it this way is because AwesomeWM delegates the image loading to GDK/Cairo. They have multiple optional backends for multiple formats. jpg and png are likely always supported. But depending on what you have installed (like librsvg), .svg and other format may work.