Ajax success event not working

I have a registration form and am using $.ajax to submit it.

This is my AJAX request:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $("form#regist").submit(function() {
        var str = $("#regist").serialize();
        $.ajax({
            type: 'POST',
            url: 'submit1.php',
            data: $("#regist").serialize(),
            dataType: 'json',
            success: function() {
                $("#loading").append("<h2>you are here</h2>");
            }        
        });
        return false;        
    });
});

In my submit1.php file I check for the existence of fields email address and username in the database. I wish to display an error message if those value exist without a page refresh.

How can I add this to the success callback of my AJAX request?

The result is probably not in JSON format, so when jQuery tries to parse it as such, it fails. You can catch the error with error: callback function.

You don't seem to need JSON in that function anyways, so you can also take out the dataType: 'json' row.

Although the problem is already solved i add this in the hope it will help others.

I made the mistake an tried to use a function directly like this (success: OnSuccess(productID)). But you have to pass an anonymous function first:

  function callWebService(cartObject) {
   
    $.ajax({
      type: "POST",
      url: "http://localhost/AspNetWebService.asmx/YourMethodName",
      data: cartObject,
      contentType: "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
      dataType: "html",
      success: function () {
        OnSuccess(cartObject.productID)
      },
      error: function () {
        OnError(cartObject.productID)
      },
      complete: function () {
        // Handle the complete event
        alert("ajax completed " + cartObject.productID);
      }
    });  // end Ajax        
    return false;
  }

If you do not use an anonymous function as a wrapper OnSuccess is called even if the webservice returns an exception.

I tried removing the dataType row and it didn't work for me. I got around the issue by using "complete" instead of "success" as the callback. The success callback still fails in IE, but since my script runs and completes anyway that's all I care about.

$.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url: 'somescript.php',
    data: someData,
    complete: function(jqXHR) {
       if(jqXHR.readyState === 4) {
          ... run some code ... 
       }   
    }        
 });

in jQuery 1.5 you can also do it like this.

var ajax = $.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url: 'somescript.php',
    data: 'someData'
});
ajax.complete(function(jqXHR){
    if(jqXHR.readyState === 4) {
        ... run some code ... 
    }
});

Make sure you're not printing (echo or print) any text/data prior to generate your JSON formated data in your PHP file. That could explain that you get a -sucessfull 200 OK- but your sucess event still fails in your javascript. You can verify what your script is receiving by checking the section "Network - Answer" in firebug for the POST submit1.php.

Put an alert() in your success callback to make sure it's being called at all.

If it's not, that's simply because the request wasn't successful at all, even though you manage to hit the server. Reasonable causes could be that a timeout expires, or something in your php code throws an exception.

Install the firebug addon for firefox, if you haven't already, and inspect the AJAX callback. You'll be able to see the response, and whether or not it receives a successful (200 OK) response. You can also put another alert() in the complete callback, which should definitely be invoked.

I was returning valid JSON, getting a response of 200 in my "complete" callback, and could see it in the chrome network console... BUT I hadn't specified

dataType: "json"

once I did, unlike the "accepted answer", that actually fixed the problem.

I had same problem. it happen because javascript expect json data type in returning data. but if you use echo or print in your php this situation occur. if you use echo function in php to return data, Simply remove dataType : "json" working pretty well.

You must declare both Success AND Error callback. Adding

error: function(err) {...} 

should fix the problem

I'm using XML to carry the result back from the php on the server to the webpage and I have had the same behaviour.

In my case the reason was , that the closing tag did not match the opening tag.

<?php
....
header("Content-Type: text/xml");
echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?>
    <result>
    	<status>$status</status>
	    <OPENING_TAG>$message</CLOSING_TAG>
    </result>";
?>

I had this problem using an ajax function to recover the user password from Magento. The success event was not being fired, then I realized there were two errors:

1. The result was not being returned in JSON format
2. I was trying to convert an array to JSON format, but this array had non-utf characters

So every time I tried to use json_eoncde() to encode the returning array, the function was not working because one of its indexes had non-utf characters, most of them accentuation in brazilian portuguese words.

I tried to return string from controller but why control returning to error block not in success of ajax

var sownum="aa";
$.ajax({
	type : "POST",
	contentType : 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
	dataType : "JSON",
	url : 'updateSowDetails.html?sownum=' + sownum,
	success : function() {
		alert("Wrong username");
	},
	error : function(request, status, error) {
		
		var val = request.responseText;
		alert("error"+val);
	}
});

I faced the same problem when querying controller which does not return success response, when modified my controller to return success message problem was solved. note using Lavalite framework. before:

public function Activity($id)
    {
        $data=getData();
        return
            $this->response->title('title')
                ->layout('layout')
                ->data(compact('data'))
                ->view('view')
                ->output();
    }
after code looks like:
    try {
            $attributes = $request->all();
            //do something
            return $this->response->message('')
                ->code(204)
                ->status('success')
                ->url('url'. $data->id)
                ->redirect();
        } catch (Exception $e) {
            return $this->response->message($e->getMessage())
                ->code(400)
                ->status('error')
                ->url('nothing Wrong')
                ->redirect()
        }

this worked for me

I had the same problem i solved it in that way: My ajax:

event.preventDefault();
$.ajax('file.php', {
method: 'POST',
dataType: 'json',
contentType: 'application/json',
data: JSON.stringify({tab}), 
success: function(php_response){
			if (php_response == 'item') 
				{
					console.log('it works');
				}
			}
		})

Ok. The problem is not with json but only php response. Before: my php response was:

echo 'item';

Now:

$variable = 'item';
 echo json.encode($variable);

Now my success working. PS. Sorry if something is wrong but it is my first comment on this forum :)

in my case the error was this was in the server side and for that reason it was returning a html

wp_nonce_field(basename(__FILE__), "mu-meta-box-nonce");

Add 'error' callback (just like 'success') this way:

$.ajax({
   type: 'POST',
   url: 'submit1.php',
   data: $("#regist").serialize(),
   dataType: 'json',
   success: function() {
      $("#loading").append("<h2>you are here</h2>");
   },
   error: function(jqXhr, textStatus, errorMessage){
      console.log("Error: ", errorMessage);
   }
});

So, in my case I saw in console:

Error:  SyntaxError: Unexpected end of JSON input
  at parse (<anonymous>), ..., etc.

The success callback takes two arguments:

success: function (data, textStatus) { }

Also make sure that the submit1.php sets the proper content-type header: application/json