How to clear jQuery validation error messages?

If you didn't previously save the validators apart when attaching them to the form you can also just simply invoke

$("form").validate().resetForm();

as .validate() will return the same validators you attached previously (if you did so).

If you want to simply hide the errors:

$("#clearButton").click(function() {
  $("label.error").hide();
  $(".error").removeClass("error");
});

If you specified the errorClass, call that class to hide instead error (the default) I used above.

You want the resetForm() method:

var validator = $("#myform").validate(
   ...
   ...
);

$(".cancel").click(function() {
    validator.resetForm();
});

I grabbed it from the source of one of their demos.

Note: This code won't work for Bootstrap 3.

I came across this issue myself. I had the need to conditionally validate parts of a form while the form was being constructed based on steps (i.e. certain inputs were dynamically appended during runtime). As a result, sometimes a select dropdown would need validation, and sometimes it would not. However, by the end of the ordeal, it needed to be validated. As a result, I needed a robust method which was not a workaround. I consulted the source code for jquery.validate.

Here is what I came up with:

function clearValidation(formElement){
 //Internal $.validator is exposed through $(form).validate()
 var validator = $(formElement).validate();
 //Iterate through named elements inside of the form, and mark them as error free
 $('[name]',formElement).each(function(){
   validator.successList.push(this);//mark as error free
   validator.showErrors();//remove error messages if present
 });
 validator.resetForm();//remove error class on name elements and clear history
 validator.reset();//remove all error and success data
}
//used
var myForm = document.getElementById("myFormId");
clearValidation(myForm);

$.fn.clearValidation = function(){var v = $(this).validate();$('[name]',this).each(function(){v.successList.push(this);v.showErrors();});v.resetForm();v.reset();};
//used:
$("#formId").clearValidation();