JSF/Seam - new component instance on submit?

Question

And my confusion with JSF continues. This is a continuation of a question asked yesterday, but I feel it warrants a new question. I have a single seam component that expects a URL parameter to be injected for retrieving a List<String> from a method. This works perfectly on the first navigation to the page. The List is used to display many different selectOneRadio groups that populate a <h:form/>.

Now on the submit, I cannot get the URL parameter to be injected or otherwise set on the component! Adding <h:inputHidden/> causes FacesExceptions to be thrown.

Then I tried setting the List as an instance variable on the object, and when the subsequent call is made on the submit (which I also do not understand why that is done) I check to see if the variable is non-null: if it isn't, return it.

Now I found that a new instance of the component is created on submit!!!

getList() called
this.toString(): .BeanAction@5fd98420

#### This is when submit is clicked
getList() called
this.toString(): .BeanAction@22aacbce

The component has the following annotations:

Stateful
@Scope(ScopeType.CONVERSATION)
@Name("bean")
@Restrict("#{identity.loggedIn}")

Can someone explain why there is a new instance of the component created? I'm really not quite sure how to go about handling this. I thought the hidden parameter would work, because that is how I would do it with straight HTML, and I'm a little surprised that its not working for JSF/Seam.

Answer 1

When you enter the page (or after the submit), do you see a conversation id in the url? I am concerned that perhaps the Seam Conversation is not being initialized correctly.

Answer 2

I hit upon the solution, but I still dont understand why it is required. By adding <S:conversationId/> to the <h:commandButton/> tag I am now getting the conversationId propagated across the form submit.

However, the seam documentation states:

If you don't do anything special, a non-faces request  (a GET request for example)
will not propagate the conversation context and will be processed in a new 
temporary conversation.

Which means Seam/JSF was treating my form submit as a "non-faces request". Why is that?