> can i ask, how do you use the "abort" event handler? > and "error" event handler" >
In jQuery 1.x, we don't even use onsuccess, onerror and onabort. Reason being onreadystatechange is the only cross-browser means to handle XMLHttpRequest when you have to support old IEs (and we try and avoid having multiple code paths in jQuery because of size, maintainability and behavioural consistency). In jQuery 2.x, we use onload and onerror, not onabort. We have some short-circuit logic in $.ajax to notify author's initiated aborts as errors with a "cancelled" status but we ignore all other sources of aborts. The idea is to ignore onunload aborts so that jQuery devs don't have to special case for it in their error handlers. Now, to get back to the subject at hand, like Glenn said, it's probably better to notify those not-author-initiated aborts as errors, because from the author's POW they're hardly aborts. However, if we do so, we have to make sure it's possible to differentiate them from a network error. jQuery, as an author, can then choose to ignore them or bubble them up in $.ajax, not sure what's best for us at this point but that's another story entirely.