Setting ID twice caused LinkButton's click event to only fire after two clicks

Question

I had a situation where I was dynamically creating LinkButtons basically with no properties set on PageInit, and then later on adding the properties about those LinkButtons on another separate button's click event.(ie text, adding a click eventhandler, etc).

The problem was, I had to click the LinkButton twice for the click event handler to fire. Bear in mind, all of this is inside an update panel.

After looking at it up and down, I realized I was setting the ID for it to the same thing twice (on PageInit and also when I later set the properties). I saw that and figured it would muck up things in the control hierarchy and I understand it was the problem...but what I don't fully understand is the why .

Can someone explain to me what the technical cause was for having to click the LinkButton twice and why setting the ID to same thing twice caused this?

CODE

This occurs on CreateChildControls()

Private Sub InitializeLinkBreadCrumbPlaceHolders()
  Dim counter As Integer = 0

  'Adding the handlers has to take place before/on Page.Init...
  For counter = 0 To LEVEL_CAP
      _linkDynamic = New LinkButton()
      'Add all the links
      Me._placeHolder.Controls.Add(_linkDynamic)
      With _linkDynamic
          AddHandler .Click, AddressOf Link_Click
          .Style.Add("display", "none")
          .ID = String.Format("lbl{0}", counter)
      End With
  Next
End Sub

And this occurs when a regular button is pressed (keep in mind all of this is inside an update panel)

Private Sub SetHyperLinkBreadCrumbValues(Optional ByVal ShouldAddAsLink As Boolean = True)

    'Don't add a new link if we went backwards
    If ShouldAddAsLink Then
        Me.Links(Me.CurrentLevel) = Me.LinkHeader
    End If

    'Go through the collection to set the values of the existing linkbuttons
    For Each element As DictionaryEntry In Me.Links
        'Links 1-based index
        With CType(Me._placeHolder.Controls.Item(CInt(element.Key) - 1), LinkButton)
            .Font.Name = "Arial"
            .Font.Size = 11
            If CInt(element.Key) > 1 Then
                .Text = String.Format(" > {0}", CStr(element.Value))
            Else
                .Text = CStr(element.Value)
            End If
            .Visible = True
            .Style.Add("display", "inline")
        End With

        Me.TrimDescriptionLink(CType(Me._placeHolder.Controls.Item(CInt(element.Key) - 1), LinkButton))
    Next
End Sub

Answer 1

I have seen (and even caused) this behavior from time to time. Inevitably you are not always adding the control (or wiring up the OnClick event in PageInit . The first click causes a PostBack and on the second server page life cycle, you add the control during PageInit . On that second time around (and second button click), the event is wired up and fires the correct event. Are you possibly not wiring up the OnClick event every time during PageInit ?

Can you share some code?