Ajax POST to custom action in rails

I have the following JQuery function that sends a post request to the server to notify me when someone has clicked an end_meeting button:

$("input#end_meeting").bind('click', function(e) {
    var user_id = 500;
    var status = 0;

    $.ajax({
            type: 'POST',
            url: '/meetings/user_left',
            data: { user_id : user_id, user_status : status },
            dataType: 'html',
            success: function(xhr, textStatus) {
                alert('awesome!!!');
            },
            error: function(xhr, textStatus, errorThrown) {
                            alert('something went wrong');
            }

        });
});

and in my routes.rb I have this:

match 'meetings/user_left' => 'meetings#user_left'
resources :meetings

which corresponds to this controller method in MeetingsController:

def user_left
  #do stuff
end

However, when I execute the AJAX post method I get the following error:

AbstractController::ActionNotFound (The action 'user_left' could not be found for MeetingsController):

I've reformatted the routes declaration with

post 'meetings/user_left' => 'meetings#user_left'

but still no luck. Does anyone know why I'm not able to create a route to a custom class method?

EDIT 1

Here's a full dump of the server logs. Sorry it's a little messy.

Started POST "/meetings/user_left" for 127.0.0.1 at 2011-04-05 14:06:00 -0700

AbstractController::ActionNotFound (The action 'user_left' could not be found for MeetingsController):
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/abstract_controller/base.rb:115:in `process'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/abstract_controller/rendering.rb:40:in `process'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_controller/metal.rb:138:in `dispatch'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_controller/metal/rack_delegation.rb:14:in `dispatch'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_controller/metal.rb:178:in `block in action'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:62:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:62:in `dispatch'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:27:in `call'
  rack-mount (0.6.13) lib/rack/mount/route_set.rb:148:in `block in call'
  rack-mount (0.6.13) lib/rack/mount/code_generation.rb:93:in `block in recognize'
  rack-mount (0.6.13) lib/rack/mount/code_generation.rb:68:in `optimized_each'
  rack-mount (0.6.13) lib/rack/mount/code_generation.rb:92:in `recognize'
  rack-mount (0.6.13) lib/rack/mount/route_set.rb:139:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:492:in `call'
  warden (0.10.7) lib/warden/manager.rb:35:in `block in call'
  warden (0.10.7) lib/warden/manager.rb:34:in `catch'
  warden (0.10.7) lib/warden/manager.rb:34:in `call'
  haml (3.0.25) lib/sass/plugin/rack.rb:41:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/best_standards_support.rb:17:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/head.rb:14:in `call'
  rack (1.2.1) lib/rack/methodoverride.rb:24:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/params_parser.rb:21:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/flash.rb:182:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/session/abstract_store.rb:149:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/cookies.rb:295:in `call'
  activerecord (3.0.3) lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:32:in `block in call'
  activerecord (3.0.3) lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/query_cache.rb:28:in `cache'
  activerecord (3.0.3) lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:12:in `cache'
  activerecord (3.0.3) lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:31:in `call'
  activerecord (3.0.3) lib/active_re开发者_Go百科cord/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:353:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/callbacks.rb:46:in `block in call'
  activesupport (3.0.3) lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:415:in `_run_call_callbacks'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/callbacks.rb:44:in `call'
  rack (1.2.1) lib/rack/sendfile.rb:107:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/remote_ip.rb:48:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/show_exceptions.rb:46:in `call'
  railties (3.0.3) lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:13:in `call'
  rack (1.2.1) lib/rack/runtime.rb:17:in `call'
  activesupport (3.0.3) lib/active_support/cache/strategy/local_cache.rb:72:in `call'
  rack (1.2.1) lib/rack/lock.rb:11:in `block in call'
  <internal:prelude>:10:in `synchronize'
  rack (1.2.1) lib/rack/lock.rb:11:in `call'
  actionpack (3.0.3) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/static.rb:30:in `call'
  railties (3.0.3) lib/rails/application.rb:168:in `call'
  railties (3.0.3) lib/rails/application.rb:77:in `method_missing'
  railties (3.0.3) lib/rails/rack/log_tailer.rb:14:in `call'
  rack (1.2.1) lib/rack/content_length.rb:13:in `call'
  rack (1.2.1) lib/rack/handler/webrick.rb:52:in `service'
  /Users/chris/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/httpserver.rb:111:in `service'
  /Users/chris/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/httpserver.rb:70:in `run'
  /Users/chris/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/server.rb:183:in `block in start_thread'

EDIT 2

I ended up hacking a fix. Rails seems to be able to route the following

match 'meetings' => 'meetings#index', :via => :post

And I put a special flag in params to identify POSTS from the ajax call. Still makes no sense to me as to why rails only wants to route to the RESTful routes....

---

I'd try changing your route to something like this:

resources :meetings do
  post 'user_left', :on => :collection
end