Dynamic Control loading at wrong time?

Question

This one is a little... odd. Basically I have a form I'm building using ASP.NET Dynamic Data, which is going to utilize several custom field templates.

I've just added another field to the FormView, with it's own custom template, and the form is loading that control twice for no apparent reason. Worse yet, the first time it loads the template, the Row is not ready yet and I get the error message:

{"Databinding methods such as Eval(), XPath(), and Bind() can only be used in the context of a databound control."}

I'm accessing the Row variable in a LinqDataSource OnSelected event in order to get the child object...

Now for the wierd part: If I reorder the fields a little, the one causing the problem no longer gets loaded twice.

Any thoughts?

EDIT: I've noticed that Page_Load gets called on the first load (when Row throws an exception if you try to use it) but does NOT get called the second time around. If that helps any...

Right now managing it by just catching and ignoring the exception, but still a little worried that things will break if I don't find the real cause.

EDIT 2: I've traced the problem to using FindControl recursively to find other controls on the page. Apparently FindControl can cause the page lifecycle events (at least up to page_load) to fire... and this occurs before that page "should" be loading so it's dynamic data "stuff" isn't ready yet.

Answer 1

You aren't referring to something in Page_Load that is set in OnSelected, are you? Something like your row object. OnSelected is a postback event and occurs after Page_Load. It's the only thing I can think of that might cause your exception when the row is not ready.

Answer 2

Start commenting things out in your code behind until either everything is commented or your control no longer loads twice.

If it is still doing it, start unhooking things in the control itself. Eventually, you'll get to the actual issue.