I have this code below. I randomly ran across that it will work if I have that alert message exactly where it is. If I take it out or move it to any other spot the tabs will not appear.

What exactly is that alert doing that allows the code to work and how can I make it work without the alert?

If I move the each loop into the success section it does not work even with the alert.

$.ajax({
   type: "GET",
   url: "../ajax.php",
   data: "action=tabs",
   dataType: "json",
   success: function(data){
       Projects = data;
   }
 });
    alert("yes");
     $.each(Projects, function(i){

        /* Sequentially creating the tabs and assigning a color from the array: */
        var tmp = $('<li><a href="#" class="tab green">'+Projects[i].name+'<span class="left" /><span class="right" /></a></li>');

        /* Setting the page data for each hyperlink: */
        tmp.find('a').data('page','../ajax.php?action=lists&projectID='+Projects[i].project_id);

        /* Adding the tab to the UL container: */
        $('ul.tabContainer').append(tmp);

    });

The ajax code is retuning json with this code

        $query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `projects` ORDER BY `position` ASC");

    $projects = array();

    // Filling the $projects array with new project objects:

    while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)){
        $projects[] = $row;
    }

    echo json_encode($projects);

The returning data is very small and very fast so I don't think that is the problem.