Question

Ok, so for some reason, my ajax call keeps failing even though the server is returning 200 with valid json. Here is the ajax call:

        $.ajax(
        {
            cache: false,
            type: "GET",
            url: "http://localhost:10590/api/entry",
            dataType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
            success: function (result) {
                alert('HIT');
            },
            error: function (request, type, errorThrown) {
                alert('Fail' + type + ':' + errorThrown);
            }
        });

The error function is displaying blanks. Type says “error” but nothing after that. I’m trying to figure out why this would be happening???

Verified via fiddler, this is the json string that is being returned from the server:

{
  "EntryId":0,
  "EntryDate":"2012-12-14T18:10:48.2275967-07:00",
  "BodyWeight":207.00,
  "Bmi":0.0,
  "Fat":0.0,
  "Visceral":0.0,
  "MuscleMass":0.0
}

http://jsonlint.com/ agrees that this is valid json.

UPDATE:
adding the following before the ajax call gets it to work in IE but not chrome:

$.support.cors = true;

Answer 1

The solution I ended up using was to request ‘jsonp’ from the server. In order to get my server to return jsonp, I had to create a custom formatter. i had a hard time finding a formatter for it since every post referred to Thinktecture, which wouldn’t compile for me. So here is what I ended up with:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http.Formatting;
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Web;
using System.Net.Http;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Converters;

namespace MyDomain.Common.Web.CustomFormatters
{

    /// <summary>
    /// Handles JsonP requests when requests are fired with text/javascript
    /// </summary>
    public class JsonpFormatter : JsonMediaTypeFormatter
    {

        public JsonpFormatter()
        {
            SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/json"));
            SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("text/javascript"));

            JsonpParameterName = "callback";
        }

        /// <summary>
        ///  Name of the query string parameter to look for
        ///  the jsonp function name
        /// </summary>
        public string JsonpParameterName { get; set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// Captured name of the Jsonp function that the JSON call
        /// is wrapped in. Set in GetPerRequestFormatter Instance
        /// </summary>
        private string JsonpCallbackFunction;


        public override bool CanWriteType(Type type)
        {
            return true;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Override this method to capture the Request object
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="type"></param>
        /// <param name="request"></param>
        /// <param name="mediaType"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public override MediaTypeFormatter GetPerRequestFormatterInstance(Type type, System.Net.Http.HttpRequestMessage request, MediaTypeHeaderValue mediaType)
        {
            var formatter = new JsonpFormatter()
            {
                JsonpCallbackFunction = GetJsonCallbackFunction(request)
            };

            // this doesn't work unfortunately
            //formatter.SerializerSettings = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SerializerSettings;

            // You have to reapply any JSON.NET default serializer Customizations here    
            formatter.SerializerSettings.Converters.Add(new StringEnumConverter());
            formatter.SerializerSettings.Formatting = Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.Indented;

            return formatter;
        }


        public override Task WriteToStreamAsync(Type type, object value,
                                        Stream stream,
                                        HttpContent content,
                                        TransportContext transportContext)
        {
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(JsonpCallbackFunction))
                return base.WriteToStreamAsync(type, value, stream, content, transportContext);

            StreamWriter writer = null;

            // write the pre-amble
            try
            {
                writer = new StreamWriter(stream);
                writer.Write(JsonpCallbackFunction + "(");
                writer.Flush();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                try
                {
                    if (writer != null)
                        writer.Dispose();
                }
                catch { }

                var tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<object>();
                tcs.SetException(ex);
                return tcs.Task;
            }

            return base.WriteToStreamAsync(type, value, stream, content, transportContext)
                       .ContinueWith(innerTask =>
                       {
                           if (innerTask.Status == TaskStatus.RanToCompletion)
                           {
                               writer.Write(")");
                               writer.Flush();
                           }

                       }, TaskContinuationOptions.ExecuteSynchronously)
                        .ContinueWith(innerTask =>
                        {
                            writer.Dispose();
                            return innerTask;

                        }, TaskContinuationOptions.ExecuteSynchronously)
                        .Unwrap();
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Retrieves the Jsonp Callback function
        /// from the query string
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        private string GetJsonCallbackFunction(HttpRequestMessage request)
        {
            if (request.Method != HttpMethod.Get)
                return null;

            var query = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(request.RequestUri.Query);
            var queryVal = query[this.JsonpParameterName];

            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(queryVal))
                return null;

            return queryVal;
        }
    }
}