Send AJAX to server beforeunload

Question

So supposedly starting at Firefox > 4, binding the window jQuery object to beforeunload doesn't work anymore.

What'd I'd like to do is submit an AJAX post to delete my server's memcache data.

When I refresh the only open tab, I can see that the beforeunload event is called in both firefox and chrome with the following code as evidenced by the console.log message, "firefox/NON-firefox delete". The problem is that I never see the console.log message "memcache delete" indicating that my server never saw the $.ajax request.

I realize it is bad to do browser sniffing and that there is no difference between what's included in the if and else statements. I'm merely showing code for what I've tried unsuccessfully in Firefox.

Anyone have any ideas?

$(window).bind('beforeunload', function(){ 
  if(/Firefox[\/\s](\d+)/.test(navigator.userAgent) && new Number(RegExp.$1) >= 4) {
    console.log('firefox delete');
     memcacheDelete();
     return null;
  } 
  else {
    console.log('NON-firefox delete');
    memcacheDelete();
    return null;
  }
});

function memcacheDelete() {
   $.ajax({
      url: "/memcache/delete", 
      type: "post",
      data:{}, 
      success:function(){
          console.log('memcache deleted');
      }//success
  }); //ajax
}

Answer 1

Ajax is asynchronous.

When you refresh (or close)your browser, beforeunload is being called. And it means as soon as beforeunload is finished executing, page will refresh (or close).

When you do an ajax request, (since its asynchronous) javascript interpreter does not wait for ajax success event to be executed and moves down finishing the execution of beforeunload.

success of ajax is supposed to be called after few secs, but you dont see it as page has been refreshed / closed.

Side note:

.success() method is deprecated and is replaced by the .done() method

Reference