JQuery Ajax POST throwing an empty error without making the request

Question

I have a function that makes an Ajax request for any anchor. The request method can be GET or POST. In this case, I want to make a POST without using a form but the Ajax request throws an error before even sending the request. The error has the value "error" and all error/failure description variables are "".

 function loadPage(url,elem_id,method,data) {
    ajaxLoading(elem_id);
    $.ajax({
        type: method,
        url: url,
        data: data,
        success:function(data){
            $("#"+elem_id).html(data);;
        },
        error:function(request,textStatus,error){
            alert(error);
        }
    });
 }

When the function is called the params are these (copied from the js console):

data: "partial=yes"
elem_id: "page"
method: "post"
url: "/projects/2/follow"

As asked, here is the code that calls the loadPage function.

$("body").on("click","a.ajax",function(event) {
    var _elem = getDataElem($(this));
    var _method = getRequestMethod($(this));
    var _partial = getRequestPartial($(this));
    handlers.do_request(event,$(this).attr("href"),_elem, _method, _partial);
});

var handlers = (function() {
    var obj = {};
    obj.do_request = function(event,url,elem_id,method,data) {
        event.preventDefault();

        loadPage(url,elem_id,method,data);
        history.pushState({selector:elem_id,method:method,data:data},null,url);
    };
}());

After the failure of the Ajax request, the request is made by default and it responds sucesss. In all I have read, this seems to be a valid way to make a POST request (that doesn't need a form).

Am I doing something wrong in the function? Why is the error information empty?

Thanks

EDIT:

I have been thinking, for a POST from a "form" that function works, when the variable "data" is made with the serialize function (e.g. "var data = $(this).serialize();"). Could it be that the format of the "data" when I make a POST without a "form" is wrong in someway? Maybe the JQuery Ajax function doesn't accept a simple string like "partial=yes" as data when a POST is made. Any thoughts on this?

Answer 1

I just experienced this problem and after an hour or two, thought to try setting cache to false. That fixed it for me.

$.ajax({
    url: url,
    cache: false,
    type: method
});

Unfortunately, when I removed cache again, my request was working as if it had never had a problem. It seems as if setting cache:false made something 'click'.

Oh well.