ASP.Net Checkbox value at postback is wrong

asp.netcheckboxclientpostback

We have a checkbox that is initially disabled and checked. It is then enabled on the client side through javascript. If the user then unchecks the box and presses the button to invoke a postback, the state of the checkbox remains as checked on the server side. This is obviously undesirable behaviour. Here is an example.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="testcb.aspx.cs" Inherits="ESC.testcb" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">

    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <script type="text/javascript">
        function buttonClick() {
            var cb = document.getElementById('<%= CheckBox1.ClientID %>');
            cb.disabled = false;
            cb.parentNode.disabled = false;
        }


    </script>

    <div>
        <asp:CheckBox ID="CheckBox1" runat="server" Checked="true" Enabled="false" />
        <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" OnClientClick="buttonClick(); return false;" />
        <asp:Button ID="Button2" runat="server" Text="Button2" OnClick="button2Click" />
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

And the Server-side code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

namespace ESC
{
    public partial class testcb : System.Web.UI.Page
    {
        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
        }

        protected void button2Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            string h = "";
        }
    }
}

So we break at the "string h" line and check the value of CheckBox1.Checked. It is true, even if it is unchecked on the form.

Best Answer

This is a known problem with ASP.NET - for some reason ASP.NET won't update a checkbox on postback if it was disabled during page load and not checked for postback. I don't know exactly why that is though - if you make the checkbox unselected by default and select it, the value is changed on the server correctly.

The workaround is to add a hidden field to the page that represents the state of the checkbox, then update the field's value to "ON" or "OFF" for example, whenever the checkbox is clicked.

Then on the server you check the value of the hidden field, not the checkbox itself, as the hidden field is always posted.

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