What Does The “An out of date version of jQuery is loaded on the page” Error Mean In Caldera Forms

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Caldera Forms is heavily dependent on the library jQuery. We expect that the version of jQuery that ships with WordPress is loaded on the page. Some themes and plugins violate this best practice and that can lead to errors. These errors were not always obvious as to their source, so in version 1.5.3 of Caldera Forms, we added the warning “An out of date version of jQuery is loaded on the page. Form may not function properly.” when an older version of jQuery then the version of jQuery that ships with WordPress — 1.12.4 is used.

Note, newer version of jQuery might work, but we have not tested our plugin with newer versions.

What To Do If You Have The Out Of Date Version Of jQuery Error

Most of the time this happens for two reasons:

  • A theme or plugin has replaced the version of jQuery that WordPress uses with an older version.
  • A theme or plugin has added a second (or third) version of jQuery to the page.
    • You should view the source code of your page and search for “jquery.min.js” and “jquery.js” to identify what directory each copy is loading from.
    • Sometimes themes or plugins add jQuery to the page outside without using the correct function, leading to multiple copies on the page.
    • This leads to situations where sometimes the form works and sometimes it doesn’t.
    • In these cases, you probably should remove that plugin.

Developer’s Note On Using jQuery From A CDN

Please note when we say that we support the version of jQuery shipped with WordPress, we are referring to version number not the actual copy in wp-includes. Here is how we load jQuery from a CDN on CalderaForms.com ensuring the right version is used: