Determine if $.ajax error is a timeout
If your error event handler takes the three arguments (xmlhttprequest, textstatus, and message) when a timeout happens, the status arg will be 'timeout'.
Per the jQuery documentation:
Possible values for the second argument (besides null) are "timeout", "error", "notmodified" and "parsererror".
You can handle your error accordingly then.
I created this fiddle that demonstrates this.
$.ajax({ url: "/ajax_json_echo/", type: "GET", dataType: "json", timeout: 1000, success: function(response) { alert(response); }, error: function(xmlhttprequest, textstatus, message) { if(textstatus==="timeout") { alert("got timeout"); } else { alert(textstatus); } }});With jsFiddle, you can test ajax calls -- it will wait 2 seconds before responding. I put the timeout setting at 1 second, so it should error out and pass back a textstatus of 'timeout' to the error handler.
Hope this helps!