Abort Ajax requests using jQuery

Question

Using jQuery, how can I cancel/abort an Ajax request that I have not yet received the response from?

Answer 1

As many people on the thread have noted, just because the request is aborted on the client-side, the server will still process the request. This creates unnecessary load on the server because it's doing work that we've quit listening to on the front-end.

The problem I was trying to solve (that others may run in to as well) is that when the user entered information in an input field, I wanted to fire off a request for a Google Instant type of feel.

To avoid firing unnecessary requests and to maintain the snappiness of the front-end, I did the following:

var xhrQueue = [];
var xhrCount = 0;

$('#search_q').keyup(function(){

    xhrQueue.push(xhrCount);

    setTimeout(function(){

        xhrCount = ++xhrCount;

        if (xhrCount === xhrQueue.length) {
            // Fire Your XHR //
        }

    }, 150);

});

This will essentially send one request every 150ms (a variable that you can customize for your own needs). If you're having trouble understanding what exactly is happening here, log xhrCount and xhrQueue to the console just before the if block.

Answer 2

Most of the jQuery Ajax methods return an XMLHttpRequest (or the equivalent) object, so you can just use abort().

See the documentation:

• abort Method (MSDN). Cancels the current HTTP request.
• abort() (MDN). If the request has been sent already, this method will abort the request.

var xhr = $.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: "some.php",
    data: "name=John&location=Boston",
    success: function(msg){
       alert( "Data Saved: " + msg );
    }
});

//kill the request
xhr.abort()

UPDATE: As of jQuery 1.5 the returned object is a wrapper for the native XMLHttpRequest object called jqXHR. This object appears to expose all of the native properties and methods so the above example still works. See The jqXHR Object (jQuery API documentation).

UPDATE 2: As of jQuery 3, the ajax method now returns a promise with extra methods (like abort), so the above code still works, though the object being returned is not an xhr any more. See the 3.0 blog here.

UPDATE 3: xhr.abort() still works on jQuery 3.x. Don't assume the update 2 is correct. More info on jQuery Github repository.

Answer 3

Save the calls you make in an array, then call xhr.abort() on each.

HUGE CAVEAT: You can abort a request, but that's only the client side. The server side could still be processing the request. If you are using something like PHP or ASP with session data, the session data is locked until the ajax has finished. So, to allow the user to continue browsing the website, you have to call session_write_close(). This saves the session and unlocks it so that other pages waiting to continue will proceed. Without this, several pages can be waiting for the lock to be removed.

Answer 4

AJAX requests may not complete in the order they were started. Instead of aborting, you can choose to ignore all AJAX responses except for the most recent one:

• Create a counter
• Increment the counter when you initiate AJAX request
• Use the current value of counter to "stamp" the request
• In the success callback compare the stamp with the counter to check if it was the most recent request

Rough outline of code:

var xhrCount = 0;
function sendXHR() {
    // sequence number for the current invocation of function
    var seqNumber = ++xhrCount;
    $.post("/echo/json/", { delay: Math.floor(Math.random() * 5) }, function() {
        // this works because of the way closures work
        if (seqNumber === xhrCount) {
            console.log("Process the response");
        } else {
            console.log("Ignore the response");
        }
    });
}
sendXHR();
sendXHR();
sendXHR();
// AJAX requests complete in any order but only the last 
// one will trigger "Process the response" message

Demo on jsFiddle

Answer 5

You can't recall the request but you can set a timeout value after which the response will be ignored. See this page for jquery AJAX options. I believe that your error callback will be called if the timeout period is exceeded. There is already a default timeout on every AJAX request.

You can also use the abort() method on the request object but, while it will cause the client to stop listening for the event, it may probably will not stop the server from processing it.

Answer 6

The following code shows initiating as well as aborting an Ajax request:

function libAjax(){
  var req;
  function start(){

  req =    $.ajax({
              url: '1.php',
              success: function(data){
                console.log(data)
              }
            });

  }

  function stop(){
    req.abort();
  }

  return {start:start,stop:stop}
}

var obj = libAjax();

 $(".go").click(function(){


  obj.start();


 })



 $(".stop").click(function(){

  obj.stop();


 })

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<input type="button" class="go" value="GO!" >
   <input type="button" class="stop" value="STOP!" >