handle ajax error when a user clicks refresh

Question

i apologise if this is something i should be able to look up. all of the terms i wanted were way overloaded..

here is my problem: when i open a page, it fires off a

Answer 1

var isPageBeingRefreshed = false;

window.onbeforeunload = function() {
    isPageBeingRefreshed = true;
};

$.ajax({
    error: function (xhr, type, errorThrown) {
        if (!xhr.getAllResponseHeaders()) {
            xhr.abort();
            if (isPageBeingRefreshed) {
                return; // not an error
            }
        }
    }
});