"SyntaxError: Unexpected token < in JSON at position 0"

In a React app component which handles Facebook-like content feeds, I am running into an error:


Feed.js:94 undefined "parsererror" "SyntaxError: Unexpected token < in JSON at position 0

I ran into a similar error which turned out to be a typo in the HTML within the render function, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

More confusingly, I rolled the code back to an earlier, known-working version and I'm still getting the error.

Feed.js:

```
import React from 'react';

var ThreadForm = React.createClass({
getInitialState: function () {
return {author: '',
text: '',
included: '',
victim: ''
}
},
handleAuthorChange: function (e) {
this.setState({author: e.target.value})
},
handleTextChange: function (e) {
this.setState({text: e.target.value})
},
handleIncludedChange: function (e) {
this.setState({included: e.target.value})
},
handleVictimChange: function (e) {
this.setState({victim: e.target.value})
},
handleSubmit: function (e) {
e.preventDefault()
var author = this.state.author.trim()
var text = this.state.text.trim()
var included = this.state.included.trim()
var victim = this.state.victim.trim()
if (!text || !author || !included || !victim) {
return
}
this.props.onThreadSubmit({author: author,
text: text,
included: included,
victim: victim
})
this.setState({author: '',
text: '',
included: '',
victim: ''
})
},
render: function () {
return (







)
}
})

var ThreadsBox = React.createClass({
loadThreadsFromServer: function () {
$.ajax({
url: this.props.url,
dataType: 'json',
cache: false,
success: function (data) {
this.setState({dat

The wording of the error message corresponds to what you get from Google Chrome when you run JSON.parse('<...'). I know you said the server is setting Content-Type:application/json, but I am led to believe the response body is actually HTML.

Feed.js:94 undefined "parsererror" "SyntaxError: Unexpected token < in JSON at position 0"

with the line console.error(this.props.url, status, err.toString()) underlined.

The err was actually thrown within jQuery, and passed to you as a variable err. The reason that line is underlined is simply because that is where you are logging it.

I would suggest that you add to your logging. Looking at the actual xhr (XMLHttpRequest) properties to learn more about the response. Try adding console.warn(xhr.responseText) and you will most likely see the HTML that is being received.

Stack Overflow Q#37280274, score: 247