weird problem with ComboBox - DataSource contains data, but the Items collection stays empty

[Marek Grzenkowicz]

I created a custom control which simply is a data-bound ComboBox. It has a custom property that causes an ArrayList of KeyValuePair elements to be passed to the DataSource property. It also sets the DisplayMember and ValueMember properties. What's weird, is the fact that my control sometimes works fine and sometimes it doesn't. I have no idea why, but when I put on Form1 everything is fine, while on Form2 the Items collection stays empty, although the DataSource property contains data and it is exactly the same data (pulled from the database in the same way) that I use in case of Form1. I tried to use a DataTable instead of an ArrayList, but it changed nothing. Does anybody have any suggestions?

[Marek Grzenkowicz]

I found a solution. It seems that the problem was caused by the fact that in one the windows (Form2) I was trying to access the Items collection in the window's constructor. Even though I put my code after the InitializeComponent method, the combo box must've been still not fully initialized. I moved the code to Form.Load event and everything works fine.