Rails update.js.erb not executing javascript

Question

I am building a form in rails that will edit an existing question via ajax.

After the form is submitted and the question has been updated, the update method in the controller renders update.js.erb, which will hide the form again.

My problem is that the javascript code in update.js.erb is not executing at all.

I know that the file is rendering because it shows up in the server output, and when I put a

<% raise params %> 

into it, it works.

However, even the simplest

alert('hello'); 

has no effect in the same file.

I've ruled out javascript and jquery configuration issues because the same code works perfectly in my edit.js.erb file. It's just not working in update.js.erb.

What am I missing?

Edit:

Firebug shows no errors. Here is the response in firebug's network panel:

alert('hello'); $('#question_body').replaceWith('<h4><p>jhsdfjhdsb k jdfs j fjfhds <strong>jfshaflksd;hf sdldfs l fdsalkhdfskhdfs</strong>;fd lfdksh hfdjaadfhsjladfhsjadfs ;df sjldfsj dfas hafdsj fdas ;ldfas ldfs df dl;hdf fdh ;fdj ;lfads</p></h4>'); 

def update

Edit 2:

This is the controller action:

def update   respond_to do |format|     if @question.update_attributes(params[:question])       format.html { redirect_to @question, :flash => { :success => 'Question was successfully updated.' } }       format.json { head :no_content }       format.js {}     else       format.html { render action: "edit" }       format.json { render json: @question.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }     end   end end 

Answer 1

In your $.ajax call make sure to set the dataType option to "script" otherwise the response could be interpreted in other ways and thus not executed as JS.

Answer 2

Do you work with haml, or html.erb? If the former, then this might be the solution:

respond_to do |format|   ...   format.js {render layout: false} end 

I had the exact same problem, found this question early on, took another hour or so of Googling to find this question on StackOverflow that led me to it: jQuery + Ajax + Haml. js.erb files not firing