jq ajax success error,Jquery Ajax post success/error function

I have a post function that is not being caught on error.

Here's the value being returned from postride.php.

if ($group_id==0) {

echo 'No group selected';

return false;

exit;

}

Here's the jquery code:

$(document).ready(function(){

$('#postride').submit(function(event) {

event.preventDefault();

dataString = $("#postride").serialize();

$.ajax({

type: "post",

url: "postride.php",

data:dataString,

error: function(returnval) {

$(".message").text(returnval + " failure");

$(".message").fadeIn("slow");

$(".message").delay(2000).fadeOut(1000);

},

success: function (returnval) {

$(".message").text(returnval + " success");

$(".message").fadeIn("slow");

$(".message").delay(2000).fadeOut(1000);

//setTimeout( function() { top.location.href="view.php" }, 3000 );

}

})

return false;

});

});

The post function returns false, but the error function does not fire, only the success function. It will post "No group selected success".

Thanks for any help!