AJAX not working with myfaces 2.1 and rich faces 4.3

Question

We are upgrading from jsf 1.2 to jsf 2. We are using apache myfaces 2.1 and rich faces 4.3.

The issue is , it seems that <a4j:commandButton> tag AJAX feature is broken. Below is the xhtml file.

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:c="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
    xmlns:a4j="http://richfaces.org/a4j"
    xmlns:rich="http://richfaces.org/rich">


    <h:form prependId="false" id="questionsForm">   

        <!-- other form fields are not shown -->
        <a4j:commandButton  id="questions" value="Clear" action="#{bean.clearAction}"/> 
    </h:form>

</html>

When the "clear" button is clicked , back end code executes but an entire page reload happens (page refreshes again). Pre-migration code works perfectly fine with no page reload.

Can anyone please help in how to get this AJAX work in rich faces tags ?

L-Ray L-Ray · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-16T12:48:39

As given attributes you have to tell a4j:commandButton,

which parts you want to have executed (e.g. which input fields of the current page shall be updated)
which parts of the page you want to have re-rendered

The first is done with the attribute execute, the last is done with the attribute render. If none of both is given, the button behaves like a traditional h:commandButton (which explains the described behaviour)

Update: Also check that the <head> and <body> tag have to be like <h:head> and <h:body> so JSF has a chance to add mandatory javascript- and css libraries.

Update: Have you double-checked your action returns void/""/null and not any forwards? (see also "a4j:commandButton makes a full page reload RichFaces 3.3.3 CR1")

AJAX not working with myfaces 2.1 and rich faces 4.3

1 Answers