jQuery AJAX producing 304 responses when it shouldn't

Question

This really has me scratching my head. Namely because it only happens in IE, not Firefox, and I was under the impression that jQuery was effectively browser neutral. I\'ve b

Answer 1

1. Always use POST for calls to methods that modify state, not GET. This should be enough in this instance to prevent IE caching the request.
2. IE aggressively caches ajax requests (see http://www.dashbay.com/2011/05/internet-explorer-caches-ajax/ and https://blog.httpwatch.com/2009/08/07/ajax-caching-two-important-facts/). To prevent this, you can:
   1. Add a cache busting parameter ($.ajaxSetup({ cache: false }); does this automatically.
   2. Always use POST requests (probably not appropriate in most cases).
   3. Turn on cache headers for AJAX requests server side. The first link demonstrates how to do this using in groovy. Similar methods should apply to any framework.