cannot call methods on [widget name] prior to initialization; attempted to call method 'destroy'

[Daniel15]

Thrown at this part of the script:

// call destroy to remove the ui widget
uiFn.call($el, 'destroy');

With custom widgets that use the widget factory. Accordion has this issue as well (and possibly other jQuery UI widgets).

[Nevets82]

This issue occurs as of version 1.9: http://jqueryui.com/upgrade-guide/1.9/#calling-an-invalid-method-now-throws-an-error

You can solve this by adding an if statement around the destroy method call:

// test if ui widget is initialized
if ($el.is('.ui-' + fn)) {
    // call destroy to remove the ui widget
    uiFn.call($el, 'destroy');
}

[prokofyev]

Thank you, Steven!