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Cesar Aguirre
Cesar Aguirre

Posted on • Originally published at canro91.github.io

A Quick Lesson After A Long Debugging Session (And Almost Pulling My Hair Off)

I originally posted this post on my blog.


I almost pulled my hair off.

I debugged an issue in a Blazor grid for over two half days. I followed my own advice from Street-Smart Coding:

  • Isolated the problem
  • Removed all irrelevant parts
  • Discussed it with a rubber duck

Just to keep seeing the same error message: "TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'removeChild')".

StackOverflow says it was Blazor trying to remove an orphan element. So I removed everything except for my grid, and wrapped it around a div.

Same mistake.

After questioning my career choices and almost removing "Senior" from my title, I asked for help.

My coworker pulled my branch and reproduced the issue. To my surprise, the issue wasn't only in my grid. It was in all other grids, all over the app. It was an issue in the Blazor component itself we were using for grids. Arrggg!

Sometimes you just need to ask for help earlier.

Like one of my mentors told me and the team, "you have nothing to prove. Ask for help."

And that's something I cover on Chapter #2 of Street-Smart Coding.

Top comments (4)

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monahidalgo profile image
Mona Hidalgo

Asking for help is a good practice. Also, always remember the fixes.

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canro91 profile image
Cesar Aguirre

Yeah, like don't ask for help on the same thing over and over

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baltasarq profile image
Baltasar García Perez-Schofield

Asking for help is great, provided you know who to ask to. Some people is just a waste of time, unfortunately.

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canro91 profile image
Cesar Aguirre

...yeah, like they ask for help and don't follow the instructions they get. So why asking for help in the first place?