Asp.net: can not debug this problem: Sys.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: elements

15
votes

This is strange, that I have this problem:

Sys.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: elements.

This problem only happens in IE.

Details:

  • ScriptResource.axd = Line: 4868
  • Code: 0 - Char: 12

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; InfoPath.2; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; AskTbBT4/5.8.0.12304) Timestamp: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:24:42 UTC

Message:

Sys.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: elements Line: 4868 Char: 12 Code: 0 URI: http://asdfsdf/ScriptResource.axd?d=7NwOnZl2VMauVPybpy_0vvP2zsCf0g8YK4dd3SkNMq873HwvoDhnE7rPvjFZwFLM0&t=11e661nl.js

5
asp.net
Can you show some code involving the parameter elements? The error says your elements variable is null or undefined. Show the line of code how you are getting elements? - Sachin Shanbhag
Are you using any AJAX controls? Ajax Control toolkit? Third party ASP.NET AJAX controls? - Brian Mains
I have the same problem. It's undeniably some combination of UpdatePanel and ajaxcontroltoolkit. - UmaN

5 Answers

31
votes

Changing ScriptMode to Release fixed this for me.

<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" ScriptMode="Release"></asp:ScriptManager>

16
votes

I have the same problem...

It's undeniably a combination of UpdatePanel and AjaxControlToolkit...

Edit:

Didn't see how old this question was. Maybe it's not relevant anymore... But in my case I have encountered this problem now on two occations and found two different solutions. The first occation involved update panels, a modalpopupextender and a validationsummary control. The problemw was that the validationsummary didn't output a semicolon at the end of the generated javascript. The solution is to create your own mini-control that inherits from ValidationSummary and does this on pre-render:

    protected override void OnPreRender(EventArgs e)
    {
        base.OnPreRender(e);

        ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(this.Page, this.Page.GetType(), this.ClientID, ";", true);
    }

Simply adds a semicolon to the javascript. That solved it.

I'm unsure if I was facing the same problem again now, but my problem-page again had updatepanels, ajaxcontrol toolkit controls (Modalpopupextender) and validaiton summaries. Because I had forgotten my previous solution, I tried another one I found on google; setting

ScriptMode="Release"

on my scriptmanager in my master page. This worked. Not sure whether I should be happy or not with this... Seems like the debug version spits out javascript that doesn't work when combined with some other asp.net controls.

4
votes

You will also get this error if you set Visible=False on the control specified in the CancelControlID of a ModalPopupExtender. If you have a code path where you need to hide the CancelControlID, just be sure to set the CancelControlID = "" in that situation. That was the problem I ran into...

2
votes

In Case you are using ReportViewer on the page this might help.

Set compilation debug="false" in web.config.

1
votes

Happend to me where I've created an update panel in a custom server control and did not use RenderControl() afterwards

protected override void RenderContents(HtmlTextWriter writer)
{
  myUpdatePanel.RenderControl(writer);
}