AJAX subscription form not working - php

Question

I'm working on a subscription form. It takes a users email, on click it should check if the email is in the database, if it is return false, if not it should add it and then return true.
I'd like all this done using ajax to improver user experience.
The function no longer seems to be getting called, I'm very new to AJAX so not sure where the problem might be. Any help appreciated.
HTML:
<section>
<h4>Stay Updated</h4>
<p>Sign up for our newsletter. We won't share your email address.</p>
<form name="newsletterForm" id="newsletterForm" action="" method="post">
<div class="input-append row-fluid">
<input type="email" placeholder="Email Address" class="span6" name="newsletterEmail" id="newsletterEmail"/>
<input type="submit" id="newsletterSubmit" name="newsletterSubmit" value="newsletterSubmit" onclick="newsletterSignup(); return false">
<p id="status"></p>
</div>
<!--close input-append-->
</form>
</section>
PHP:
Ive removed the test to chec if the email is present to simplify things.
<?php require(dirname(__FILE__).'../core/init.php');
if($_POST){
$email = $_POST['newsletterEmail'];
if($newsletter->addEmail($email) == true){
$data['message'] = "Signed up";
$data['success'] = true;
}
echo json_encode($data);
}
the php function:
public function addEmail($email){
$query = $this->db->prepare("INSERT INTO `newsletter` (`email`, `signupDate`)
VALUES (?, ?)");
$mysqltime = date ("Y-m-d H:i:s", time());
$query->bindValue(1, $email);
$query->bindValue(2, $mysqltime);
try{
$query->execute();
return true;
}catch(PDOException $e){
die($e->getMessage());
}
}//end add email function
AJAX:
function newsletterSignup(){
var email = $('#newsletterEmail').val();
if(email == ""){
$('input#newsletterEmail').focus();
return false;
}
var params = {email: email};
var url = "newsletterSignup.php";
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: url,
data: params,
dataType: 'json',
beforeSend: function(){
alert("ASD");
document.getElementById("status").innerHTML='<img src="sending.gif"/>sending...';
},
success: function(data){
alert("success");
if(data.success == true){
document.getElementById("status").innerHTML= '<p>Sent!</p>' ;
}else{
document.getElementById("status").innerHTML= '<p>Error!</p>' ;
}
},
error: function(error){
alert("Gets ERRORA");
console.log(error);
}
});
}
It's worth noting that the sign up form is in the footer which is an include. not sure if that's relevant or not.
EDIT: The alert in beforeSend is being shown so I know it's calling the function etc. The alert in error doesn't get called though. There are no XHR messages in the log.

Answer 1

three problems it seems
it couldn't find the php file
when it could it wasn't happy with my require statement at the top
then the POST variable wis named incorrectly.
Now working.