Answer - The "Content-Type" header needs to be set to"text/xml". In servlets this may be done using the HttpServletResponse.setContentType()should be set to "text/xml" when the return type is XML. Many XMLHttpRequest implementations will result in an error if the "Content-Type" header is set The code below shows how to set the "Content-Type". response.setContentType("text/xml"); response.getWriter().write("invalid"); You may also want to set whether or not to set the caches header for cases such as autocomplete where you may want to notify proxy servers/and browsers not to cache the results. response.setContentType("text/xml"); response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache"); response.getWriter().write("invalid"); Note to the developer: Internet Explorer will automatically use a cached result of any AJAX response from a HTTP GET if this header is not set which can make things difficult for a developer. During development mode you may want set this header. Where do I store state with an AJAX client As with other browser based web applications you have a few options which include: * On the client in cookies - The size is limited (generally around 4KB X 20 cookies per domain so a total of 80KB) and the content may not be secure unless encrypted which is difficult but not impossible using JavaScript. * On the client in the page - This can be done securely but can be problematic and difficult to work with. See my blog entry on Storing State on the Client for more details on this topic. * On the client file system - This can be done if the client grants access to the browser to write to the local file system. Depending on your uses cases this may be necessary but caution is advised. * On the Server - This is closer to the traditional model where the client view is of the state on the server. Keeping the data in sync can be a bit problematic and thus we have a solution Refreshing Data on this. As more information processing and control moves to the client where state is stored will need to be re-evaluated.