Problems with jQuery getJSON using local files in Chrome

Question

I have a very simple test page that uses XHR requests with jQuery's $.getJSON and $.ajax methods. The same page works in some situations and not in others. Specificially, it doesn't work in Chrome on Ubuntu.

I'm testing on Ubuntu 9.10 with Chrome 5.0.342.7 beta and Mac OSX 10.6.2 with Chrome 5.0.307.9 beta.

• It works correctly when files are installed on a web server from both Ubuntu/Chrome and Mac/Chrome (try it out here).
• It works correctly when files are installed on local hard drive in Mac/Chrome (accessed with file:///...).
• It FAILS when files are installed on local hard drive in Ubuntu/Chrome (access with file:///...).

The small set of 3 files can be downloaded in a tar/gzip file from here: http://issues.tauren.com/testjson/testjson.tgz

When it works, the Chrome console will say:

XHR finished loading: "http://issues.tauren.com/testjson/data.json". index.html:16Using getJSON index.html:21 Object result: "success" __proto__: Object index.html:22success XHR finished loading: "http://issues.tauren.com/testjson/data.json". index.html:29Using ajax with json dataType index.html:34 Object result: "success" __proto__: Object index.html:35success XHR finished loading: "http://issues.tauren.com/testjson/data.json". index.html:46Using ajax with text dataType index.html:51{"result":"success"} index.html:52undefined 

When it doesn't work, the Chrome console will show this:

index.html:16Using getJSON index.html:21null index.html:22Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'result' of null index.html:29Using ajax with json dataType index.html:34null index.html:35Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'result' of null index.html:46Using ajax with text dataType index.html:51 index.html:52undefined 

Notice that it doesn't even show the XHR requests, although the success handler is run. I swear this was working previously in Ubuntu/Chrome, and am worried something got messed up. I already uninstalled and reinstalled Chrome, but that didn't help.

Can someone try it out locally on your Ubuntu system and tell me if you have any troubles? Note that it seems to be working fine in Firefox.

Answer 1

Another way to do it is to start a local HTTP server on your directory. On Ubuntu and MacOs with Python installed, it's a one-liner.

Go to the directory containing your web files, and :

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 

Then connect to http://localhost:8000/index.html with any web browser to test your page.