Extensions Library Dialog Box refresh / caching issue? - xpages

Question

I seem to be having an issue with the extensions library dialog box either not refreshing or caching values.
Please see the very simplified example below. Basically the button pops up an extension library dialog box. Contained in the dialog box is a computed field with #Unique() as it's value. On our prod server the number is not being updated when the button is pressed. It works on the first button press but subsequent presses do not update the number.
This occurs only in production and a similar issue has only started occurring in the past couple of weeks. It still works fine on our Dev and QA servers.
My admin contacts are out right now so I don't know the differences in versions between the servers but I will post them when I learn that information.
Here is the code:
<xp:view xmlns:xp="http://www.ibm.com/xsp/core"
xmlns:xc="http://www.ibm.com/xsp/custom"
xmlns:xe="http://www.ibm.com/xsp/coreex">
<xp:this.resources>
<xp:script src="/Validation_SSJS.jss" clientSide="false"></xp:script>
</xp:this.resources>
<xp:br></xp:br>
<xp:br></xp:br>
<xe:dialog id="dlgMsg2" title="Message" style="width:400px;">
<xp:text escape="true" id="computedField1" value="#{javascript:return #Unique();}">
</xp:text>
</xe:dialog><xp:br></xp:br>
<xp:br></xp:br>
<xp:br></xp:br>
<xp:button value="Popup Message" id="button1">
<xp:eventHandler event="onclick" submit="true"
refreshMode="complete">
<xp:this.action><![CDATA[#{javascript:var dlg = getComponent("dlgMsg2");
dlg.show();}]]></xp:this.action>
</xp:eventHandler></xp:button>
</xp:view>
Update: The issue is occurring in both IE and Firefox so it does not appear to be browser related. I am guessing it is not Pistolstar related either as I had a previous issue with PS and Xpages. Pistolstar has discovered that issue and I will update my previous post when I get more details
Update: I checked and our QA and Prod servers are have version 8.5.3.20111208-0717 of the extension library.

Answer 1

I came up with a "workaround" to fix this issue. I added a refresh event handler for the onShow event of the dialog box.
<xe:dialog id="dlgMsg2" title="Message" style="width:400px;">
<xp:text escape="true" id="computedField1" value="#{javascript:return #Unique();}">
</xp:text>
<xp:eventHandler event="onShow" submit="true"
refreshMode="partial" refreshId="computedField1">
</xp:eventHandler></xe:dialog>
It would still be interesting to know the underlying issue.

Answer 2

In the All Properties section of the dialog there is a property called 'RefreshOnShow'.
When set to true the contents of the panel will be refreshed every time the panel goes from a hidden state to a visible state. This should resolve the issue that you are seeing.

Answer 3

It may be unlikely, but page persistence options in the xsp.properties could alter the way the page behaves across environments. There is the xsp.properties on the database and on the server. XPages Portable Command Guide has more details on the different settings, but settings could change what gets retained between requests.