The state information is invalid for this page and might be corrupted. (Only in IE)

Question

Can anybody help me out with this exception. I have tried couple of fixes but nothing worked. I am getting this exception only in IE(7, 8 and 9).

When i load the page first time, it brings up a dropdown. where i select a specific vendor and it makes a page post back and returns the required information. If i change the vendor it will still load the information. When i load a control onto page using $.ajax request dynamically and than go back and change the dropdown selection(select a different vendor), it craps out and gave me the following exception. Again it only happens in the IE.

The state information is invalid for this page and might be corrupted. 
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. 

Exception Details: System.Web.HttpException: The state information is invalid for this page and might be corrupted.

Source Error: 


[No relevant source lines]


Source File: c:\Users\tmalik\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\6691c708\751e6443\App_Web_a3kdfsht.2.cs    Line: 0 

Stack Trace: 


[FormatException: The input is not a valid Base-64 string as it contains a non-base 64 character, more than two padding characters, or a non-white space character among the padding characters. ]
   System.Convert.FromBase64String(String s) +0
   System.Web.UI.ObjectStateFormatter.Deserialize(String inputString) +77
   System.Web.UI.ObjectStateFormatter.System.Web.UI.IStateFormatter.Deserialize(String serializedState) +4
   System.Web.UI.Util.DeserializeWithAssert(IStateFormatter formatter, String serializedState) +37
   System.Web.UI.HiddenFieldPageStatePersister.Load() +147

[ViewStateException: Invalid viewstate. 
    Client IP: 127.0.0.1
    Port: 
    Referer: http://localhost:57289/vendor.aspx
    Path: /vendor.aspx
    User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; MDDR)
    ViewState: 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...]

[HttpException (0x80004005): The state information is invalid for this page and might be corrupted.]
   System.Web.UI.ViewStateException.ThrowError(Exception inner, String persistedState, String errorPageMessage, Boolean macValidationError) +235
   System.Web.UI.ViewStateException.ThrowViewStateError(Exception inner, String persistedState) +14
   System.Web.UI.HiddenFieldPageStatePersister.Load() +251
   System.Web.UI.Page.LoadPageStateFromPersistenceMedium() +106
   System.Web.UI.Page.LoadAllState() +43
   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +8431
   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +253
   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest() +78
   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestWithNoAssert(HttpContext context) +21
   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) +49
   ASP.vendor_aspx.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) in c:\Users\tmalik\AppData\Local\Temp\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\6691c708\751e6443\App_Web_a3kdfsht.2.cs:0
   System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +100
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +75

Answer 1

Ok, so here is the solution/hack i came up with. My problem was that adding a user control dynamically (through ajax request) onto page was changing the view state of the page and was throwing an exception. Upon research I found out that viewstate stores the state of a page (properties and settings). Once you return the controls html from a web service, there is going to be some sort of viewstate stored onto page. And when you post back to the server, it will throw an exception when it decrypt the viewstae to rebuild the page. I have simply removed those controls (which got added dynamically) on page post back using jquery and problem got solved.

//In my case "VendorListDropDownSearchable", causes the page post back.
    $("#VendorListDropDownSearchable").change( function () {
        $("#UserControl1DIV").remove(); //removing the place holder holding control1
        $("#UserControl2DIV").remove(); //same as above
    });