jquery in SharePoint 2010 layouts folder not working

Question

I have placed the jquery library script in the layouts folder on my server:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\CustomScripts

for what ever reason, I cannot get a simple script to run. I have tried every combination I can think of:

<SharePoint:ScriptLink ID="jqueryScriptLink" Localizable="false" runat="server" Name="/_layouts/CustomScripts/jquery-1.11.1.min.js"></SharePoint:ScriptLink>

<SharePoint:ScriptLink ID="jqueryScriptLink" Localizable="false" runat="server" Name="/CustomScripts/jquery-1.11.1.min.js"></SharePoint:ScriptLink>

<script src="/CustomScripts/jquery-1.11.1.min.js"></script>

<script src="/_layouts/CustomScripts/jquery-1.11.1.min.js"></script>

But none seem to load the jquery library. I placed a simple alert in the document ready function:

$(document).ready(function() { 
alert('hello'),
} 

and it isn't working. Is there something in SP or on the server that needs to be done before you can call a custom script from this location? I have tried also to navigate to the script URL:

https://mysharepointinstance/_layouts/CustomScripts/jquery-1.11.1.min.js

and

https://mysharepointinstance/CustomScripts/jquery-1.11.1.min.js

Again, no dice. It says webpage not found.

Any help is appreciated

Answer 1

Do you have more that one web front end server in your SharePoint environment?

Answer 2

I had a similar issue once. What helped me is placing the js-File in the SiteAssets and referring it from there. What also helped was using jQuery instead of $ in front of every jQuery command and using

_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push("MyFunctionName");
function MyFunctionName()
 {
 // Code
 }

to make sure all the other js-Files were loaded before executing your code.
Reference:
http://chrisfleischhacker.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/adding-javascript-to-execute-on-sharepoint-pages-body-onload-event/