How to cancel a jquery.load()?

If you want any custom handling such as this, you simply can’t use the jQuery.load() function. You’ll have to upgrade to jQuery.ajax(), which I recommend anyway since you can do so much more with it, especially if you need any kind of error handling, it will be necessary.

Use the beforeSend option for jQuery.ajax and capture the xhr. Then you can create callback which can cancel the xhr after your timeout, and the callbacks as necessary.

This code is not tested, but should get you started.

var enableCallbacks = true;
var timeout = null;
jQuery.ajax({
  ....
  beforeSend: function(xhr) {
    timeout = setTimeout(function() {
      xhr.abort();
      enableCallbacks = false;
      // Handle the timeout
      ...
    }, 5000);
  },
  error: function(xhr, textStatus, errorThrown) {
    clearTimeout(timeout);
    if (!enableCallbacks) return;
    // Handle other (non-timeout) errors
  },
  success: function(data, textStatus) {
    clearTimeout(timeout);
    if (!enableCallbacks) return;
    // Handle the result
    ...
  }
});