ASP.NET Controls and Update Panels

Question

I am creating a series of client side component controls on the fly that are nested inside a update panel. The first time I create the controls, everything works as desired, however, when i trigger an update on the update panel and it does a partial postback the controls come back with several javascript errors describing how the control is already registered on the page.

I get a series of errors that say something about like: "Error: Sys.InvalidOperationException: Two components with the same id "master_ctl40_CCB_PALETTES" can't be added to the application"

Any ideas anyone?

Answer 1

In which event are you adding the components to the update panel? I.e. have you placed them inside the page load event without a postback check or have you placed them inside the update panel load event? etc...

Answer 2

Try these tricks:

1. On Page_Load put uxFailedControl.ID = DateTime.Now.ToString(); It will ensure your control has unique ID every time page reloads (fully or partially), so theoretically you shouldn't see anymore "same id" errors.
2. If you display your control in Modal Popup: Every time you hide the popup from the server, remove the control from it's container (Panel, Page, Control, etc.) Use uxModalPopupPanel.Controls.Clear(); or uxModalPopupPanel.Remove(uxFailedControl);
3. When you are done with debugging set ScriptMode property of your ScriptManager to "Release". It will prevent internal AJAX exceptions to be bubbled up to the browser.

Answer 3

Looks like your client object is being created more than once.

If you want your client side controls to be replaced when the update panel they're in refreshes, they should inherit from Sys.UI.Control, which takes takes an element in its constructor. When that element is replaced by the update panel, the client object will be disposed and then re-created. If you're currently using a ScriptComponentDescriptor on the server side to define the client control instance, you'll want to switch to a ScriptControlDescriptor.

By the sounds of it, your client objects just inherit from Sys.Component, which will hang around until they're manually disposed, which is why you're getting an error about having more than one component with the same ID.

I would advise against using a new ID every post back - this will just keep creating new client objects without ever cleaning up the old ones.