Question

We are trying to pass credentials to our site via jquery ajax (not using php [yeah I know this is unsafe]).

It seems Safari is having trouble with the username/password attributes of the ajax method. (jquery ajax) We are using jquery 1.5.1.

Here is example code:

$.ajax({
    url: "/some/url",
    type: 'GET',
    cache: true,
    dataType: 'json',
    processData: false,
    data: 'get=login',
    timeout: 7000,
    username: "user",
    password: "pass",
    success: function (data, textStatus, response) {
        Log("success");
    },
    error: function (data, textStatus, response) {
        Log("fail");
    }
});

This works fine in Firefox, Chrome, and IE7/8, but Safari won’t even send the ajax to the server (did a trace with wireshark and nothing is going down the pipe). Strangely enough, the error function gets called.

If I comment out username and password, the ajax is sent.

Answer 1

I was able to fix this problem by using beforeSend and creating a request header. Apparently if this isn’t included, Safari chokes and doesn’t send anything. Here’s the code:

$.ajax({
    url: "/some/url",
    type: 'GET',
    cache: true,
    dataType: 'json',
    processData: false,
    data: 'get=login',
    timeout: 7000,
    username: "user",
    password: "pass",
    beforeSend: function (req) {
        req.setRequestHeader('Authorization', "Basic " + btoa("user:password"));
    }
    success: function (data, textStatus, response) {
        Log("success");
    },
    error: function (data, textStatus, response) {
        Log("fail");
    }
});