Problem listening for a customevent question

Question

I'm new to WLP and trying to setup a portlet to listen for a custom event.
I'm using WLP 10.3.2 with two portlets on a page. Portlet 'A' fires a custom event when it is maximized. I verified the event is getting fired. Portlet 'B' is listening for my 'TestEvent' and should display a message if it receives the event. However portlet 'B' never receives the event. Portlet 'B' is a JSP portlet. Below is the code used to fire the event from portlet 'A', and the code from the 'B' portlet .portlet file. Can anyone tell me why portlet 'B' does not receive the event?
thanks
PORTLET A CODE TO FIRE EVENT:
public void fireTestEvent(HttpServletRequest request,
               HttpServletResponse response, Event event) {
          System.out.println("prepairing to fireTestEvent");
          PortletBackingContext context = PortletBackingContext.getPortletBackingContext(request);     
          context.fireCustomEvent("TestEvent", "test message");
          System.out.println("fired TestEvent");          
PORTLET B CODE FROM .portlet file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<portal:root xmlns:netuix="http://www.bea.com/servers/netuix/xsd/controls/netuix/1.0.0"
xmlns:portal="http://www.bea.com/servers/netuix/xsd/portal/support/1.0.0"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.bea.com/servers/netuix/xsd/portal/support/1.0.0 portal-support-1_0_0.xsd">
<netuix:portlet backingFile="backing.Listening" definitionLabel="bPortlet" title="Bportlet">
<netuix:handlePortalEvent event="onMinimize" eventLabel="handlePortalEvent1"
fromSelfInstanceOnly="false" onlyIfDisplayed="true" sourceDefinitionLabels="aPortlet">
<netuix:invokeBackingFileMethod method="handlePortalEvent"/>
</netuix:handlePortalEvent>
<netuix:handleCustomEvent event="TestEvent" eventLabel="handleCustomEvent1"
fromSelfInstanceOnly="false" onlyIfDisplayed="true" sourceDefinitionLabels="aPortlet">
<netuix:invokeBackingFileMethod method="handleTestEvent"/>
</netuix:handleCustomEvent>
<netuix:titlebar>
<netuix:maximize/>
<netuix:minimize/>
</netuix:titlebar>
<netuix:content>
<netuix:jspContent contentUri="/portlets/bPortlet.jsp"/>
</netuix:content>
</netuix:portlet>
</portal:root>

Answer 1

I figured out the issue. Portlet B only listens for the event if it is visible. The event gets fired when portlet A is maximized, so portlet B is no longer visible.
thanks