Prevent double submission of forms in jQuery

Question

Update in 2018: I just got some points for this old answer, and just wanted to add that the best solution would be to make the operation idempotent so that duplicate submissions are harmless.

Eg, if the form creates an order, put a unique ID in the form. The first time the server sees an order creation request with that id, it should create it and respond "success". Subsequent submissions should also respond "success" (in case the client didn't get the first response) but shouldn't change anything.

Duplicates should be detected via a uniqueness check in the database to prevent race conditions.

---

I think that your problem is this line:

$('input').attr('disabled','disabled');

You're disabling ALL the inputs, including, I'd guess, the ones whose data the form is supposed to submit.

To disable just the submit button(s), you could do this:

$('button[type=submit], input[type=submit]').prop('disabled',true);

However, I don't think IE will submit the form if even those buttons are disabled. I'd suggest a different approach.

A jQuery plugin to solve it

We just solved this problem with the following code. The trick here is using jQuery's data() to mark the form as already submitted or not. That way, we don't have to mess with the submit buttons, which freaks IE out.

// jQuery plugin to prevent double submission of forms
jQuery.fn.preventDoubleSubmission = function() {
  $(this).on('submit',function(e){
    var $form = $(this);

    if ($form.data('submitted') === true) {
      // Previously submitted - don't submit again
      e.preventDefault();
    } else {
      // Mark it so that the next submit can be ignored
      $form.data('submitted', true);
    }
  });

  // Keep chainability
  return this;
};

Use it like this:

$('form').preventDoubleSubmission();

If there are AJAX forms that should be allowed to submit multiple times per page load, you can give them a class indicating that, then exclude them from your selector like this:

$('form:not(.js-allow-double-submission)').preventDoubleSubmission();

Timing approach is wrong - how do you know how long the action will take on client's browser?

How to do it

$('form').submit(function(){
  $(this).find(':submit').attr('disabled','disabled');
});

When form is submitted it will disable all submit buttons inside.

Remember, in Firefox when you disable a button this state will be remembered when you go back in history. To prevent that you have to enable buttons on page load, for example.

I think Nathan Long's answer is the way to go. For me, I am using client-side validation, so I just added a condition that the form be valid.

EDIT: If this is not added, the user will never be able to submit the form if the client-side validation encounters an error.

        // jQuery plugin to prevent double submission of forms
        jQuery.fn.preventDoubleSubmission = function () {
            $(this).on('submit', function (e) {
                var $form = $(this);

                if ($form.data('submitted') === true) {
                    // Previously submitted - don't submit again
                    alert('Form already submitted. Please wait.');
                    e.preventDefault();
                } else {
                    // Mark it so that the next submit can be ignored
                    // ADDED requirement that form be valid
                    if($form.valid()) {
                        $form.data('submitted', true);
                    }
                }
            });

            // Keep chainability
            return this;
        };

event.timeStamp doesn't work in Firefox. Returning false is non-standard, you should call event.preventDefault(). And while we're at it, always use braces with a control construct.

To sum up all of the previous answers, here is a plugin that does the job and works cross-browser.

jQuery.fn.preventDoubleSubmission = function() {

    var last_clicked, time_since_clicked;

    jQuery(this).bind('submit', function(event) {

        if(last_clicked) {
            time_since_clicked = jQuery.now() - last_clicked;
        }

        last_clicked = jQuery.now();

        if(time_since_clicked < 2000) {
            // Blocking form submit because it was too soon after the last submit.
            event.preventDefault();
        }

        return true;
    });
};

To address Kern3l, the timing method works for me simply because we're trying to stop a double-click of the submit button. If you have a very long response time to a submission, I recommend replacing the submit button or form with a spinner.

Completely blocking subsequent submissions of the form, as most of the above examples do, has one bad side-effect: if there is a network failure and they want to try to resubmit, they would be unable to do so and would lose the changes they made. This would definitely make an angry user.

Please, check out jquery-safeform plugin.

Usage example:

$('.safeform').safeform({
    timeout: 5000,  // disable next submission for 5 sec
    submit: function() {
        // You can put validation and ajax stuff here...

        // When done no need to wait for timeout, re-enable the form ASAP
        $(this).safeform('complete');
        return false;
    }
});

...but the form is not submitted with any of the POST data it is supposed to include.

Correct. Disabled form element names/values will not be sent to the server. You should set them as readonly elements.

Also, anchors cannot be disabled like that. You will need to either remove their HREFs (not recommended) or prevent their default behaviour (better way), e.g.:

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
    $("form#my_form").submit(function(){
      $('input').attr('readonly', true);
      $('input[type=submit]').attr("disabled", "disabled");
      $('a').unbind("click").click(function(e) {
          e.preventDefault();
          // or return false;
      });
    });
</script>

There is a possibility to improve Nathan Long's approach. You can replace the logic for detection of already submitted form with this one:

var lastTime = $(this).data("lastSubmitTime");
if (lastTime && typeof lastTime === "object") {
    var now = new Date();
    if ((now - lastTime) > 2000) // 2000ms
        return true;
    else
        return false;
}
$(this).data("lastSubmitTime", new Date());
return true; // or do an ajax call or smth else