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Successive background-color animation request failing with jQuery 1.6.1

I'm trying to "flash" an input box by changing the background color briefly and then reverting back to the original bg color using jquery to indicate an error and grab the users attention.
Here's a fiddle to demonstrate what I'm trying to do.
I have to use jquery version 1.6.1. In the fiddle demo, it's using 1.6.4 and the color of the input box never changes at all. Actually, it doesn't work even with 1.11. In my local tests with my code, the input box changes red with the first animation call, but fails to do anything for the second animation call (to revert the bg color back to white). It just stays red.
I'm using very similar code to do the same thing in another site, except using jquery 1.11 and it works fine.
Is this just a compatibility issue? Is there some way I can make this work properly with version 1.6.1 ?
Here's the code:
function flashInputBox(id) {
var input = $('#'+id);
input.focus();
input.stop(true).animate({'background-color': '#EC8686'}, 350, function() {
input.stop(true).animate({'background-color': '#FFFFFF'}, 1000);
});
}
I forgot to mention that I'm using jQuery UI v1.8.18
The problem is properly replicated now in this fiddle (same code, just added jQuery UI 1.8.18).

Do you need to use jQuery? If not, this is way easier in CSS using key frames. If it is, skip my CSS explanation.
CSS
This still uses jQuery, but it gives the animation job to CSS, making your code more legible. I set this up in jsFiddle if you want to check it out: jsFiddle Example
First, setup a keyframe:
#keyframes pulse{
from {
background: #ec8686;
}
to {
background: #ffffff;
}
}
#-webkit-keyframes pulse{
from {
background: #ffffff;
}
to {
background: #ec8686;
}
}
and attach it to your existing input:
#my-input{
...
-webkit-animation: pulse 5s infinite;
-webkit-animation-play-state: paused;
...
}
Then the jQuery becomes a matter of letting the animation play for a few seconds:
function doIt() {
$("#my-input").css("-webkit-animation-play-state", "running");
setTimeout(function() {
$("#my-input").css("-webkit-animation-play-state", "paused");
}, 5000);
}
Also, you don't even need the jQuery to trigger the animation. The button click can directly trigger a CSS animation, however I figured you have some sort of code to check what's in the box for accuracy, so that why I kept your old function.
Note that this keyframe ends suddenly, so you can totally have a 0%, 50%, 100% keyframe instead.
Now for the raw jQuery way:
jQuery
For your jQuery, its much easier just to either specify your input directly (aka $("#my-input-name")), or if its just one input, I got it working just by using the following code instead:
function doIt() {
...
input.stop().animate({'background-color': '#EC8686'}, 350, function() {
// just say input here //
input.animate({'background-color': '#FFFFFF'}, 1000);
});
}

Colors aren't numeric values, so they can't be animated. From the jQuery documentation for .animate, emphasis mine:
All animated properties should be animated to a single numeric value, except as noted below; most properties that are non-numeric cannot be animated using basic jQuery functionality (For example, width, height, or left can be animated but background-color cannot be, unless the jQuery.Color() plugin is used). Property values are treated as a number of pixels unless otherwise specified. The units em and % can be specified where applicable.
If you don't want to (or can't) use the jQuery.Color plugin, you'll need to animate the color "manually", e.g. by setting an interval and changing the color at each step.

CSS flipping page "trembles"

I'm trying to create a flipping page effect with pure CSS. I found this code and now I'm trying to customize it. Basically I want the flipping animation to happen once the page is loaded. So I did this. Now instead of #page-flip:hover #s3 (for example) I have .hover #s3 and I add hover class to #page-flip with JS:
window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', init);
function init(){
setTimeout(function(){
document.getElementById('page-flip').classList.add('hover')
}, 100);
}
It works just fine. The problem is, on both animations I see a little page "trembling" when the animation starts. I'm trying to get rid of it for hours and for now no luck. Any suggestions, please?

.fadeIn() / fadeOut() on mousemove

I got a problem with smooth fadeIn and fadeOut in mousemove... I am doing some calculations about what is under top element, and based on those calculations I would like to fadeIn() or fadeOut() tooltip. The problem is that when moving a mouse, events are being shoot like every few milliseconds.
The sitiuation looks like this:
I move the mouse, tooltip is hidden. Suddenly mouse pointer is on top of element that should trigger fadeIn(), but this element is not the triggerer, because it is behind of some other element. So I need to shoot fadeIn() from mousemove. But, when I shoot it, every few milliseconds, it doesn't work, or works million times. But generally, it does not... animation simply stucks as long as I move mouse, because fadeIn() is being called all over again. I am really tired of this, tried to fix it for like 5 hours and nothing.
I've tried:
.stop() before fadeIn() / fadeOut() in different configurations... but the only visible effect I got was that it looked like show(), because stop(true,true) simply deletes the queue and leads to the end of last animation. So, wow! It is show... how... eghn... great :/
Using :visibe selector to fadeOut() and :not(:visible) to fadeIn() ... well.. that of course did not change much, an with stop() it was just leaving semitransparent tooltip
Using rel attribute to define that the fadeOut() was already shoot and should not be shoot anymore... even worse idea, because it simply did not come back after total fadeOut()
To get some reset and thing, but I can't rest when I don't have this problem resolved - it is sooo annoying!
I wonder if anybody reads this anyway... I wouldn't.
So HOW to limit fadeOut(), fadeIn() events to one each time so it would smoothly fadeIn and fadeOut even from middle of animation when event is triggered by mousemove?
I will probably get -1000 for this question... doooh.

I'd suggest you use css for this instead. You lose a bit of compatibility (Most notably older IE's), but it's simpler and will run a lot smoother.
E.g. define opacity in a :hover pseudo class, and then define a transition property with a timing of your choice.
Edit:
Using css in this case has no use because as I said, the event is not trigered by top most layer... stop(true,true) works exactly te same as show() because it is called every few milliseconds, and once is enough to stop fade effect.
In that case, set/unset a class on the fading-element inside your event handler. Let css do the work for you.
E.g.:
<style>
#tooltip { opacity:0 ; transition:opacity 1s linear }
#tooltip.enabled { opacity:1 }
</style>
<div class="has-tooltip">Foo</div>
<div id="tooltip">Tooltip</div>
<script>
$(".has-tooltip")
.on("mouseenter", function() { $("#tooltip").addClass("enabled") })
.on("mouseleave", function() { $("#tooltip").removeClass("enabled") })
</script>

You can try to unbind events before FadeIn/fadeOut and bind again after animation is complete (in complete function).

try this, call this function on mouse move
TIMER='';
function onmove()
{
if(TIMER)
clearTimeout(TIMER);
else
TIMER = setTimeout(function(){
// use yor code here eg. $('whteverID').fadeIn();
},10)
}

jQuery - Can I animate css properties? Background-image particularly

I know I can fade in and out divs and elements, but can I animate properties as well?
I thought about this just now when changing background-image property of a certain div. And thought it'd be cool if the background image was faded in as well ;)
Here's the code I'm using to replace background image. But can it be animated?
var originalBG = $('#wrapper').css('background-image');
$('.bggallery_images img').hover(function () {
var newBG = "url('" + $(this).attr('src');
$('#wrapper').css('background-image', newBG);
}, function () {
$('#wrapper').css('background-image', originalBG);
});

jQuery has the animate() method that does exactly that.
Check out the examples in the manual, they should show you everything you need.

JQuery UI is a plug in that extends the animation function to animate color if that's what you're looking to do with the background. Basically if JQuery doesn't do it, there's most likely a library that extends it to have that functionality.

jQuery animate problems

I use the following snippet to make an element's background lightblue, then slowly fade to whiite over 30 seconds:
$("#" + post.Id).css("background-color", "lightblue")
.animate({ backgroundColor: "white" }, 30000);
Two questions.
First, instead of fading to white, is there a way to fade opacity to 100%? That way I don't have to change "white" if I choose to change the page's background color?
Second, about once out of every 10 or 15 times, the background stays lightblue and fails to fade to white. I'm using the latest versions of jQuery and the UI core. What could be going wrong?
EDIT: Bounty is for a solution to problem regarding second question.
EDIT2:
Apparently I got downvoted into oblivion because I said I rolled my own solution but didn't show it. My bad. I didn't want to be self-promoting. My code works 100% of the time and doesn't require jQuery. A demonstration and the code can be found at:
http://prettycode.org/2009/07/30/fade-background-color-in-javascript/

For your second question: in my experience this is usually because a Javascript error has occurred somewhere else on the page. Once there is one Javascript exception, the rest of the page stops running Javascript. Try installing Firebug (if you haven't already), then open up the "Console" tab and enable it. Then any javascript errors or exceptions will be printed to the console.
Another thing to try (which kinda contradicts my last statement...) is to disable all your browser plug-ins to see if you can recreate. Sometimes they interfere with scripts on the page (particularly GreaseMonkey.)
If you could provide a sample HTML snippet which reproduces this animation problem it would be a lot easier for us to help you. In the script I have pasted below, I can click it all day, as fast or slow as I like, and it never fails to animate for me.
For the first question: I know you said you'd found a workaround, but the following works for me (even on IE6) so I thought I'd post it, since it may be different from what you were thinking. (Note that setting CSS "opacity" property through jQuery.css() works on IE, whereas IE does not support the "opacity" property directly in CSS.)
<html>
<head>
<style>
body { background-color: #08f; }
#test { background-color: white; width: 100px; }
</style>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
var myOpacity = 0.125;
$(function(){
$('#test').css('opacity', myOpacity);
$('a').click(function(){
myOpacity = 1.0 - myOpacity;
$('#test').animate({ opacity: myOpacity });
return false;
});
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<p>Click me</p>
<div id="test">Test</div>
</body></html>

Dont forget the color plugin.
See here
When the color fails to animate to blue you could try to use the callback function to log a message to the console. You can then check that the event actually fired and completed. If it does then you could potentially use two animates. The first one to animate to a halfway house color then the use the callback to animate to white (so you get two bites of the cherry, if the outer fails but completes the callback has a second go)
It would be good if you could try to recreate the issue or give a url of the issue itself.
e.g
$("#" + post.Id).css("background-color", "lightblue")
.animate({ backgroundColor: "#C0D9D9" }, 15000, function(){
$(this).animate({ backgroundColor: "#ffffff" }, 15000)
});

You could always use something like this, avoiding the JQuery animate method entirely.
setTimeout(function() { UpdateBackgroundColor(); }, 10);
UpdateBackgroundColor() {
// Get the element.
// Check it's current background color.
// Move it one step closer to desired goal.
if (!done) {
setTimeout(UpdateBackgroundColor, 10);
}
}
Also, you may be able to remove the "white" coding by reading the background color from the appropriate item (which may involve walking up the tree).

It is possible to have jQuery change the Opacity CSS property of an item (as mentioned in another answer), but there's two reasons why that wouldn't work for your scenario. Firstly, making something "100% opaque" is fully visible. If the item didn't have any other modifications to its opacity, the default opacity is 100%, and there would be no change, so I'm guessing you meant fading to 0% opacity, which would be disappearing. This would get rid of the light blue background, but also the text on top of it, which I don't think was your intent.
A potentially easy fix for your situation is to change the color word "white" to "transparent" in your original code listing. The color plugin may not recognize that color word (haven't checked documentation on that yet), but setting the background color to "transparent" will let whatever color behind it (page background, if nothing else) shine through, and will self-update if you change your page background.

I'll answer your first question.
You can animate opacity like this:
.animate({opacity: 1.0}, 3000)
I think you can try using fadeOut/fadeIn too..

What about:
$("#" + post.Id).fadeIn( "slow" );

You could possibly have two divs that occupy the same space (using position: absolute; and position: relative; setting the z-index on one higher to make sure one is above and the other is below. the top one would have a transparent background and the one below would have a background color. then just fadeout the one below.

As for the second question:
If you think the default animation classes from JQuery are not properly working you could try Bernie's Better Animation Class. I have some good experiences with that library.

Animate only works for numbers. See the jquery docs. You can do opacity but you can't do background color. You can use the color plug in. Background-color uses strings like 'red', 'blue', '#493054' etc... which are not numbers.