How to catch a Firebase Storage error when the file doesn't exist?

My react app displays an image if it exists in Firebase Storage:

import firebase from 'firebase/app';
import 'firebase/storage';

//...//

const [imageUrl, setImageUrl] = useState(null)

//..//

firebase
  .storage()
  .ref('path_to_image')
  .getDownloadUrl()
  .then((v)=>{setImageUrl(v)}) //This sets the imageUrl state. I still get the error even if I remove this line
  .catch(()=>{setImageUrl(null)}

But I still get a 404 error logged in the console:

GET http://.../v0/....appspot.com/o/userPhotos%2FJfYvcUGG8LkyNwyu1dKpJr6j4EKmE 404 (Not Found)

I tried wrapping everything in a try/catch, but the error still gets logged.

How can I catch the exception, or is there a way I could verify that the file exists before calling getDownloadUrl?