What causes jqgrid events to fire multiple times?

Question

Our jqgrid is configured in an initgrid function that is called as the last statement of a ready handler. For some reason, the gridcomplete function is getting called multiple times. With the code below, it gets called twice, but it had been getting called 3 times. Twice is bad enough. After stepping through it multiple times, I don't see what is triggering the second execution of the gridComplete function.

When I hit the debugger at the start of gridComplete, the call stack is virtually identical each time, the only difference being a call to 'L' in the jqgrid:

Anyone have an idea why this is occurring? We are using the free version 4.13, in an ASP.net MVC application.

$(function(){
    ....
    initGrid();
}

function initGrid(){
$gridEl.jqGrid({
        xhrFields: {
            cors: false
        },
        url: "/IAConsult/GetWorkFlowIARequests",
        postData: {
            showAll: showAllVal,
            role: role,
            IsIAArchitect: userIsIA
        },
        datatype: "json",
        crossDomain: true,
        loadonce: true,
        mtype: 'GET',
        sortable: true,
        viewrecords: true,
        pager: '#workFlowIAGridPager',
        multiselect: true,
        rowNum: 50,
        autowidth: true,
        colModel: [...],
        beforeSelectRow: function (rowid, e) {
            var $myGrid = $(this),
                i = $.jgrid.getCellIndex($(e.target).closest('td')[0]),
                cm = $myGrid.jqGrid('getGridParam', 'colModel');
            return (cm[i].name === 'cb');
        },
        jsonReader: {
            repeatitems: true,
            root: "IAConsultWorkflowRequestsList"
        },
        beforeSubmitCell: function (rowid, name, value, iRow, iCol) {
            return {
                gridData: gridData
            };
        },
        serializeCellData: function (postdata) {
            return JSON.stringify(postdata);
        },
        gridComplete: function () {
            console.log('grid complete');
            let rowIDs = $gridEl.getDataIDs();
            let inCompleteFlag = false;
            let dataToFilter = $gridEl.jqGrid('getGridParam', 'lastSelectedData').length == 0
                ? $gridEl.jqGrid("getGridParam", "data")
                : $gridEl.jqGrid('getGridParam', 'lastSelectedData');
            let $grid = $gridEl, postfilt = "";
            let localFilter = $gridEl.jqGrid('getGridParam', 'postData').filters;
            let columnNames = columns.split(',');

            $('.moreItems').on('click', function () {
                $.modalAlert({
                    body: $(this).data('allitems'),
                    buttons: {
                        dismiss: {
                            caption: 'Close'
                        }
                    },
                    title: 'Design Participants'
                });
            });

            rowCount = $gridEl.getGridParam('records');
            gridViewRowCount = rowCount;

            let getUniqueNames = function (columnName) {
                ...             };

            let buildSearchSelect = function (uniqueNames) {
                var values = {};
                values[''] = 'All';
                $.each(uniqueNames,
                    function () {
                        values[this] = this;
                    });
                return values;
            };

            let setSearchSelect = function (columnName) {
                ...

            };

            function getSortOptionsByColName(colName) {
                ...
            }



            $grid.jqGrid("filterToolbar",
                { stringResult: true, searchOnEnter: true });


            if (localFilter !== "" && localFilter != undefined) {
                globalFilter = localFilter;
            }

            let grid = $gridEl.jqGrid("setGridParam",
                {
                    postData: {
                        "filters": globalFilter,
                        showAll: showAllVal,
                        role: role,
                        IsIAArchitect: userIsIA
                    },
                    search: true,
                    forceClientSorting: true
                });

            //grid.trigger("reloadGrid");
            //Ending Filter code


            for (i = 0; i < columnNames.length; i++) {

                var htmlForSelect = '<option value="">All</option>';
                var un = getUniqueNames(columnNames[i]);
                var $select = $("select[id='gs_workFlowIAGrid_" + columnNames[i] + "']");
                for (j = 0; j < un.length; j++) {
                    val = un[j];

                    htmlForSelect += '<option value="' + val + '">' + val + '</option>';
                }
                $select.find('option').remove().end().append(htmlForSelect);
            }
            debugger;
        },

        // all grid parameters and additionally the following
        loadComplete: function () {
            $gridEl.jqGrid('setGridWidth', $(window).width(), true);
            $gridEl.setGridWidth(window.innerWidth - 20);
        },

        height: '100%'
    });

Answer 1

I personally almost never use gridComplete callback. It exists in free jqGrid mostly for backwards compatibility. I'd recommend you to read the old answer, which describes differences between gridComplete and loadComplete.

Some additional advices: it's dangerous to register events inside of callbacks (see $('.moreItems').on('click', ...). If you need to make some actions on click inside of grid then I'd recommend you to use beforeSelectRow. Many events, inclusive click event supports event bubbling and non-handled click inside of grid will be bubbled to the parent <table> element. You use already beforeSelectRow callback and e.target gives you full information about clicked element.

I recommend you additionally don't use setGridParam method, which can decrease performance. setGridParam method make by default deep copy of all internals parameters, inclusive arrays like data, which can be large. In the way, changing one small parameter with respect of setGridParam can be expensive. If you need to modify a parameter of jqGrid then you can use getGridParam without additional parameters to get reference to internal object, which contains all jqGrid parameters. After that you can access to read or modify parameters of jqGrid using the parameter object. See the answer for example for small code example.