HTMLDB 1.6 / doSubmit issue

Question

My original problem:
I have numerous instances where I have a form region at the top of the page, and then a report at the bottom of the page. For instance, the top of the page might be header information, and the bottom of the page detail information.
Within the report, I have buttons labelled Edit, View, etc. In the SQL I set them up as
SELECT STUFF, OTHER STUFF, null as VIEW_LINK, null as EDIT_LINK from...
Originally I set the buttons up to branch to another page, setting the primary key of the detail line on the new page.
The problem that arose is that when doing it this way, the original page is not submitted. So, if a user changes information in the form part of the page, and then clicks on a View/Edit button it redirects without submitting the current page.
OK, quick workaround:
I changed the buttons to each have a URL redirect, along the lines of this:
javascript: document.getElementById('some hidden element').value = #SEQ_ID#; doSubmit('EDIT_ROW');
Then, on the page I put a branch to my Edit/View detail page, setting the primary key on the target page to the value within the item in document.getElementById() above. It also clears the cache on the target page.
This seemed to work fine, submitted the current page, set the primary key value, and redirected to the Edit/View detail page successfully.
New Problem:
After going into production with this, I found out this works 99.5% of the time. 0.5% of the time there seems to be a timing issue, where the branch executes before the session state is fully saved. So, the branch sets the target primary key on the detail page to null instead of the value that is set in document.getElementById().
I logged a Service Request, and they suggested I post a sample on the Oracle APEX installation. I did, but, apparently in 2.x this does not work AT ALL! The value NEVER gets set correctly.
Finally, the technician on the Service Request suggested I post my questions here.
My current workaround:
On the target page, I check the value of the primary key. If it is null, I disable all actions and display an error message that says, basically, go back and try the same thing again.
My Questions:
1) What is an acceptable workaround within the context of my requirements (e.g. set a primary key value based on the row selected in the report, redirect to another page with that primary key, submit the current page) for 1.6?
2) What is an acceptable workaround in APEX 2.x?
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide!

Answer 1

Post a link to the application on apex.oracle.com. Sounds like this should work. Just to be sure, you could create a computation or process that sets the ID on the second page to the value submitted. Then your branch can just branch to the second page without needing to set anything. It is OK to repaginate, but don't clear the cache on page 2. If you need to clear the cache, clear it in your process before you set the ID.
This same method can be used if you need to pass two text values to the second page, but the first might contain a comma. If you submit the page and set the values in a computation or process, you don't have to pass the values on the url.
Anton