Flex 4.5.1 - children of component initialised but creationComplete is not called

Question

Hi
I have a custom component which extends mx:VBox, and inside it I have 8 custom children components.
On the custom components view, the creationComplete handler gets called and tries to set some states for the children but I get null pointer exceptions that some of children's components do not exist.
I have noticed that the children's creationComplete handler never gets called. Their initialisation handler though gets called.
I have tried to change the creationPolicy to all but it made no difference.
Is there anything in particular I'd hae to look at since the creationComplet ehandler is not invoked?
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:VBox
    width="100%" height="100%"
    creationComplete="setUserWelcomeString();"
    xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"
    xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
    xmlns:presentation="com.test.presentation.*"
    <mx:ApplicationControlBar
        width="100%"
        horizontalAlign="right"
        verticalAlign="middle">
        <mx:Text
            width="97%"
            left="10"
            fontSize="14"
            fontThickness="12"
            fontWeight="bold"
            textAlign="left"
            selectable="false" text="{userWelcomeString}"/>
                    <mx:Button label="Test TimeOut" visible="{sleepButtonVisible}" />
        <mx:LinkButton id="help"
            width="60"
            color="gray"
            textAlign="right"
            label="Help">
    </mx:ApplicationControlBar>
    <presentation:DashboardSearchView initialize="trace('initialise search view');" creationComplete="trace('searchviewcomplete');" creationPolicy="all"/>
    <presentation:DashboardMyApproval initialize="trace('initializeapproval');" creationComplete="trace('approvalcomplete');" creationPolicy="all"/>
    <presentation:DashboardPendingApproval creationPolicy="all"/>
    <presentation:DashboardReviewsDue creationPolicy="all"/>
    <presentation:DashboardHistCreditApplications creationPolicy="all"/>
    <presentation:DashboardRatingWriteups creationPolicy="all"/>
    <presentation:DashboardNotifications creationPolicy="all"/>
</mx:VBox>
So for DashBoardSearchView for example the initilisation handler is called but its creationComplete handle is not called.
I added the creationPolicy to experiment. but to no avail..
any help would be much appreciated!    

Answer 1

well I've tried with something much simpler and it still doesn't work. So I removed all scripts and all components and just added an mx:Button.
The button is initialised but it's creationComplete event does not get fired.
So I'm not exactly sure what's wrong.
I have a mx:Module (DashboardModule) which is loaded using Cairngorm's ModuleViewLoader and that includes the following:
        <presentation:DashboardView
            width="100%" height="100%"
            verticalScrollPolicy="on" horizontalScrollPolicy="on"
            userProfile="{shell.userProfile}"/>
DashboardView is the code I've shown you above.
But as I said, even If I remove all scripts and components from DashboardView.mxml and just leave an mx:Button with a creationComplete handler and an initialize handler, the creationComplete handlernever gets invoked.
Could this be something with mx:Module and Cairngorm's ModuleViewLoader?
I should say that the Module's creationComplete handler gets invoked and so does the DashboardView's creationComplete handler gets invoked but not DashboardView's children.