Problem with jquery ajax call and js.rjs code

Rails
#1

On one of my pages, i make a remote request to the update action of my
school_subscribers controller with a jquery ajax call.

In my log, i can see that the action executes fine, and the
corresponding js.rjs file is evaluated (i’m logging from inside that
file and it all seems fine). I can see in the firebug console that i
get a 200 back from the remote request. But, the code in the js.rjs
file isn’t actually executed. I tried the simplest possible case of
having it just do

page.alert(“hello”)

but no joy.

I think that this is just a problem with how i have my jquery ajax
options set up - possibly the datatype option. I tried omitting
datatype, and setting it to ‘script’, or ‘html’ but neither worked.

here’s my call:

function updateSubscriber(id, paramString){
  jQuery.ajax({
    async:true,
    type: "PUT",
    datatype: 'script',
    url: "/music_service/"+<%= @music_service.id

%>+"/school_subscribers/"+id,
data: (paramString),
error: function(msg){
alert(“Sorry, there was an error updating this subscriber”);
}
});
}

Can anyone see what i’m doing wrong? Should i be using an ajax call in
this case?

#2

Even more maddening - i decided to try to do it with a button_to_remote
instead:

<%= button_to_remote “Mark as not paid”, :url =>
music_service_school_subscriber_path(@music_service, subscriber,
:school_subscriber => {:paid => 0}), :method => :put, :failure =>
“alert(‘Sorry there was an error updating this subscriber’)” %>

This generated the following, on the page (i added whitespace to make it
more readable), which works, and appears to be exactly the same as i had
when i hand-wrote the js! wtf? how come the code below works and the
code above doesn’t?