TypeError: $(...).select2 is not a function in jQuery

# TypeError: $(...).select2 is not a function in jQuery

The "$(...).select2 is not a function" jQuery error occurs for multiple reasons:

Forgetting to include the select2 library.
Loading the select2 library before the jQuery library.
Loading the jQuery library twice.
Specifying an incorrect path to the jQuery files.

To solve the error, make sure to load the jQuery library before loading the select2 library.

The libraries have to be loaded only once on the page, otherwise, the error is thrown.

index.html

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />

    <!-- ✅ Load CSS file for Select2 -->
    <link
      href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/select2@4.1.0-rc.0/dist/css/select2.min.css"
      rel="stylesheet"
    />

    <!-- ✅ load jQuery ✅ -->
    <script
      src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.min.js"
      integrity="sha256-/xUj+3OJU5yExlq6GSYGSHk7tPXikynS7ogEvDej/m4="
      crossorigin="anonymous"
    ></script>

    <!-- ✅ load JS for Select2 ✅ -->
    <script
      src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/select2/4.0.13/js/select2.min.js"
      integrity="sha512-2ImtlRlf2VVmiGZsjm9bEyhjGW4dU7B6TNwh/hx/iSByxNENtj3WVE6o/9Lj4TJeVXPi4bnOIMXFIJJAeufa0A=="
      crossorigin="anonymous"
      referrerpolicy="no-referrer"
    ></script>
  </head>

  <body>
    <!-- 👇️ Select menu  -->
    <select class="basic-single" name="state">
      <option value="AL">Alabama</option>
      <option value="WY">Wyoming</option>
    </select>

    <!-- ✅ Your JS script here ✅  -->
    <script src="index.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

The code for this article is available on GitHub

Note that we loaded the JavaScript code for the select2 library after loading the jQuery library, but before running our code that's located in the index.js file.

Here is the code in the index.js file.

index.js

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$(document).ready(function () {
  $('.basic-single').select2();
});

load and use select2 library correctly

The code for this article is available on GitHub

In the index.js file, we make sure the DOM is ready before initializing the Select2 menu. You only need a single $(document).ready() block per page.

If you load the page you will see the select menu.

The order in which the scripts are loaded is very important because they rely on one another. Make sure to load the jQuery script first, then the Select2 script and lastly load your JS script.

The order in which the scripts should be loaded:

Load the jQuery script.
Load the Select2 script.
Load your personal JS script (e.g. index.js).

If you still get the error you might be loading the jQuery library twice.

Loading the library twice re-runs the initialization process and causes the error.

If you are loading the libraries from files on your local file system, make sure to specify the paths to the files correctly. Specifying an incorrect path to a script is equivalent to not loading the script at all.

You can check if you're loading the scripts correctly by opening your Developer tools by pressing F12 and clicking on the Console tab.

If you see any 404 errors related to loading the jQuery scripts, then the path to the file is incorrect.

The code for this article is available on GitHub

# Conclusion

To solve the "$(...).select2 is not a function" jQuery error, make sure to load the jQuery library before loading the select2 library.

The libraries have to be loaded only once on the page, otherwise, the error is thrown.

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TypeError: $(...).select2 is not a function in jQuery

# TypeError: $(...).select2 is not a function in jQuery

# Conclusion

Borislav Hadzhiev