Why do I get this 501 Not Implemented error? - ajax

Question

I am performing the following AJAX call:
$(document).ready(function() {
$.getJSON('https://sendgrid.com/api/user.stats.json',
{
'api_user': 'me#mydomain.com',
'api_key': 'MYAPIKEY',
'user': 'me#mydomain.com',
'category': 'MY_CATEGORY'
},
function(response){
alert('received response');
}
);
});
and I get no alert message as expected. Instead, Firebug says I get "501 Not Implemented."
Why? What do I need to do to fix this?
If I go to the URL corresponding to the AJAX call in Firebug, I get a JSON file as a download, and it contains the expected data.
One thing I've noticed is that firebug says OPTIONS instead of GET:
alt text http://grab.by/grabs/b1a13d92a4fc69aa310880a5d7a06b95.png

Answer 1

I don't know if this is related, but generally when requesting JSON on the client to a server in a different domain you'll need to use JSONP instead of JSON due to the Same Origin Policy. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that their API supports using JSONP -- so they must expect you to interact with their site from your server. In that case you'll need proxy methods on your server to translate the calls to their API so that the client calls are made to a server in the same domain as the page.

Answer 2

As this is the top Google match for "jQuery 501 (Method not implement)" I thought I'd share what worked for me when experiencing this on the same domain (which is not your problem).
My problem was that I was not returning valid JSON, I was just returning "1". So to fix this, either:
Ensure you return valid JSON, or if you don't require a JSON response,
Swap your call to use $.ajax instead of $.getJSON, or
If you're already using &.ajax, remove type: "json"
Hope that helps some people.

Answer 3

I had the same problem, and realized it was an encoding problem. It was solved by encoding the values of the data sent to the server. Try something like:
$(document).ready(function() {
$.getJSON('https://sendgrid.com/api/user.stats.json',
{
'api_user': encodeURIComponent('me#mydomain.com'),
'api_key': encodeURIComponent('MYAPIKEY'),
'user': encodeURIComponent('me#mydomain.com'),
'category': encodeURIComponent('MY_CATEGORY')
},
function(response){
alert('received response');
}
);
});
end then decode the data on backend. Hope it helps someone.