jquery ajax request to xml resource yields "not well-formed" error in Firefox

Question

I know this has been asked many times, but the answers given there did not work for me.

I think I am doing a very common request to fetch an xml resource:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $.ajax({
      type: "GET",
      url: "data.xml",
      dataType: "xml",
      success: function(xml) {
        $(xml).find("main").each(function() {
          alert($(this).attr("val"));
        });
      }
    });

The full file can be found here, and the xml resource here.

When I access this with Firefox 36.0.4, I am greeted by an "hello world" alert as expected, but the javascript console lists the errors:

http://esel7353.org/ : Unable to run script because scripts are blocked internally.

not well-formed :1:76

In many questions asked here, the content type header in the response was inaccurate, but in my case the server tells firefox, that data.xml is application/xml.

In addition the mimeType option does not help.

I also made an clean FF profile to ensure that this is not somehow cause by plugins, but the error messages persist.

I've tested it on two computers running on ubuntu and arch linux, and on both I get the same error. I agree that chrome does not report anything. — sauerburger, Mar 23 '15 at 15:02
and on a vm with win 7 and FF 34, 35, 36 I get the same error. — sauerburger, Mar 23 '15 at 15:05
See this post http://stackoverflow.com/questions/677902/not-well-formed-error-in-firefox-when-loading-json-file-with-xmlhttprequest and especially this comment : "req.overrideMimeType("application/json"); req.send(null); works". Maybe it will help (replacing json with xml, of course)... — Jeremy Thille, Mar 23 '15 at 15:11
I read that too, and it works indeed: http://esel7353.org/json.htm, but I wonder what's the problem with xml. — sauerburger, Mar 23 '15 at 15:32
I've tested it with an clean ubuntu 14.04 live dvd, and get the same error. Seems like a bug in ff or ubuntu, which also affects the vm. Thanks @JeremyThille for your replies. — sauerburger, Mar 30 '15 at 10:10
You forgot to close $(document).ready(function() {. The last " }); " is missing. — user1511417, Jul 21 '15 at 12:39
possibly related to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30062247/jquery-call-to-find-function-gives-a-not-well-formed-error-in-firefox — aland, Nov 28 '15 at 23:41

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:30

I wrote this in another question - but since your question is also unanswered I will post it here too.

I can't say for sure that it will fix your problem, but I had similar issues with the 'not well-formed' message in firefox. Turns out there is a bug in jQuery 1.11.2 and 1.11.3 - https://github.com/jquery/jquery/issues/1969 - which is fixed upstream.

It's a relatively minor change if you host jquery on your server - see the github commit

on jquery.1.11.3.js line cca 1197 (in QSA/matchesSelector section):

 -              "<select id='" + expando + "-\f]' msallowcapture=''>" +
 +              "<select id='" + expando + "-\r\\' msallowcapture=''>" +

Hopefully there will be a new release soon.

jquery ajax request to xml resource yields "not well-formed" error in Firefox

1 Answers1