can't get autocomplete value

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
If you're using GET, you may run into problems with characters that aren't allowed in the URL, so I'd recommend using POST instead.

Also, it would keep your controller cleaner if you had your model return the JSON encoded string, or even output it directly.

I agree. Your model/controller should only be echoing a JSON array of strings only, not IDs.