Declarative component stops working after taskflow-call-in-popup

Question

Hi!
JDev 11.1.1.3.0
I need a component, much like the commandToolbarButton, but I have the requirement that the user should still be able to select from the popup even if the button is disabled.
So I created a declarative component, combining two buttons and a popup with a menu in a panelGroupLayout. The one button, the mainButton, actually executes the action, the other (with an icon only) opens a menu in a popup.
The user selects an item from the popup, the component then PPRs the main button in code to display the user's choice in the main buttons text.
    <af:panelGroupLayout layout="horizontal" id="${component.id}_layout">
      <af:commandToolbarButton id="mainButton" text="#{component.mainButtonText}"
                               clientComponent="true" disabled="#{!component.enabled}"
                               partialSubmit="true"
                               actionListener="#{component.mainButtonPressed}"/>
      <af:commandToolbarButton id="menuButton" icon="/images/arrowDownComboBox.png"
                               partialSubmit="true" disabled="#{!component.enabled}">
        <af:showPopupBehavior alignId="mainButton" align="afterStart" popupId="commandPopup"/>
      </af:commandToolbarButton>
      <af:facetRef facetName="extensionButton"/>
      <af:popup id="commandPopup" contentDelivery="lazyUncached" childCreation="immediate"
                clientComponent="true">
        <af:menu id="commandMenu" clientComponent="true" binding="#{component.commandMenu}"/>
      </af:popup>
    </af:panelGroupLayout>That works fine ... until the user opens a taskflow in a popup.
I have a bounded taskflow, jspx-based, opened by a button with an action that navigates to a taskflow-call activity in a modal dialog. The user opens the taskflow, does what needs to be done, then closes the dialog.
Still fine.
But, after the dialog has closed, when the user selects an item from the popup menu of my declarative component, I suddenly get an NPE:
<26.04.2011 19:07 Uhr MESZ> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <<RegistrationConfigurator><handleError> Server Exception during PPR, #1
java.lang.NullPointerException: UIComponent is null
     at org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.component.UIXComponent.addPartialTarget(UIXComponent.java:498)
     at org.apache.myfaces.trinidadinternal.context.RequestContextImpl.addPartialTarget(RequestContextImpl.java:513)
     at com.ge.med.web.components.button.CommandComboButton.refreshMainButton(CommandComboButton.java:213)
     at com.ge.med.web.components.button.CommandComboButton.setSelectedCommand(CommandComboButton.java:177)
     at com.ge.med.web.components.button.CommandComboButton.commandItemPressed(CommandComboButton.java:243)
     at com.ge.med.web.components.button.CommandComboButton.processAction(CommandComboButton.java:129)
     at javax.faces.event.ActionEvent.processListener(ActionEvent.java:88)To track the problem down, I have pointed the binding attribute of the declarative component to a property in a session-scoped bean, to see what the component looks like that is set, what the children and grand children are, and who the parent is.
This prints:
<26.04.2011 19:07 Uhr MESZ> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <Setter called: DemoComboButtonComponent[oracle.adf.view.rich.component.fragment.UIXInclude$ContextualFacesBeanWrapper@1762a87, id=demoAdd]>
<26.04.2011 19:07 Uhr MESZ> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <Parent: RichPanelGroupLayout[UIXFacesBeanImpl, id=cbll1]>
<26.04.2011 19:07 Uhr MESZ> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <Children: [RichPanelGroupLayout[UIXFacesBeanImpl, id=demoAdd_layout]]>
<26.04.2011 19:07 Uhr MESZ> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <Grand kids: [RichCommandToolbarButton[UIXFacesBeanImpl, id=mainButton], RichCommandToolbarButton[UIXFacesBeanImpl, id=menuButton], RichPopup[UIXFacesBeanImpl, id=commandPopup]]> That's fine. But when I add the same debug code to my setSelectedCommand() method (which is called when the user selects an item from the popup's menu), I get:
<26.04.2011 19:07 Uhr MESZ> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <I am: DemoComboButtonComponent[oracle.adf.view.rich.component.fragment.UIXInclude$ContextualFacesBeanWrapper@ba2b1c, id=demoAdd]>
<26.04.2011 19:07 Uhr MESZ> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <My Parent: null>
<26.04.2011 19:07 Uhr MESZ> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <My Children: []> The empty children property explains the NPE. This NPE only happens when the user selects an item from the popup after the dialog has closed.
Debugging showed that the new DemoComboButtonComponent is created during the restoration of (tree) state after the closing of the modal dialog. But why has it no parent? And where are the kids?
Could the binding of the declaratice component to a session-scoped bean be the problem? Somehow prevent the state mechanism from re-building the UI component tree correctly?
I am at the end of my wits.
Any help is appreciated!
Sascha

Answer 1

Hi Frank,
no, not yet. I had the feeling that it's me who is doing something wrong. Declarative components are pretty common, right? So are taskflow calls in dialogs. Someone should have noticed if there's a bug in the framework, right?!
But I changed the scope of the bean (to backing scope and request scope) that the declarative component is bound to and I still get the error.
I will try to create a simpler test case, and if I can reproduce with that, then I will file a bug, if there's no one that can explain the phenomenon.
Sascha