HTTP GET Request Status 204 Vs 404

Question

I have 2 resources User and Album. An user has a list of albums. To get albums there are 2 REST API.

1. user/{userId}/albums/{albumId} get album by albumId if not

Answer 1

Error Code 404

The web site hosting server will typically generate a "404 Not Found" web page when a user attempts to follow a broken or dead link.

Return Code 204

The server has fulfilled the request but does not need to return an entity-body.

Conclusion

You obviously need to return a 204 status code. If you use the 404 one, the user may be disturbed. More, you use 404 when the targeted album doesn't exist. Using 404 for both 1 and 2 is illogical.