FYI dataTables requires a well formed table. It must contain <thead>
and <tbody>
tags, otherwise it throws this error. Also check to make sure all your rows including header row have the same number of columns.
The following will throw error (no <thead>
and <tbody>
tags)
<table id="sample-table">
<tr>
<th>title-1</th>
<th>title-2</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>data-1</td>
<td>data-2</td>
</tr>
</table>
The following will also throw an error (unequal number of columns)
<table id="sample-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>title-1</th>
<th>title-2</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>data-1</td>
<td>data-2</td>
<td>data-3</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
For more info read more here