I'm new to Seam, and trying to port (and enhance) a web app I had running previously using just Facelets and JSF. I keep running into problems that turn out to be due to parts of the XHTML file that are commented out, like this:

<!--<h:commandButton type="submit" id="deleteTerritory"
styleClass="standardButton"
action="#{maintainLists.deleteTerritory}"
value="Delete"
/>-->

Without the comments, this works fine. But when it's commented out, I get this:

javax.el.PropertyNotFoundException: Bean: com.myApplication.backingBeans.MaintainListsI$$EnhancerByCGLIB$$b402781f, property: deleteTerritory
at com.sun.facelets.el.LegacyELContext$LegacyELResolver.getValue(LegacyELContext.java:146)
at com.sun.el.parser.AstValue.getValue(AstValue.java:117)
at com.sun.el.ValueExpressionImpl.getValue(ValueExpressionImpl.java:192)
at com.sun.facelets.el.ELText$ELTextVariable.toString(ELText.java:174)
at com.sun.facelets.el.ELText$ELTextComposite.toString(ELText.java:115)
at com.sun.facelets.compiler.CommentInstruction.write(CommentInstruction.java:38)
at com.sun.facelets.compiler.UIInstructions.encodeBegin(UIInstructions.java:39)
at com.sun.facelets.tag.jsf.ComponentSupport.encodeRecursive(ComponentSupport.java:232)
at com.sun.facelets.tag.jsf.ComponentSupport.encodeRecursive(ComponentSupport.java:239)
at com.sun.facelets.tag.jsf.ComponentSupport.encodeRecursive(ComponentSupport.java:239)
at com.sun.facelets.FaceletViewHandler.renderView(FaceletViewHandler.java:580)
at org.ajax4jsf.framework.ViewHandlerWrapper.renderView(ViewHandlerWrapper.java:108)
at org.ajax4jsf.framework.ajax.AjaxViewHandler.renderView(AjaxViewHandler.java:229)
at org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.render(LifecycleImpl.java:384)
at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.service(FacesServlet.java:138)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:269)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:188)
at org.ajax4jsf.framework.ajax.xmlfilter.BaseXMLFilter.doXmlFilter(BaseXMLFilter.java:96)
at org.ajax4jsf.framework.ajax.xmlfilter.BaseFilter.doFilter(BaseFilter.java:220)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:188)
at org.jboss.seam.web.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:63)
at org.jboss.seam.web.RedirectFilter.doFilter(RedirectFilter.java:45)
at org.jboss.seam.web.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:49)
at org.jboss.seam.web.ExceptionFilter.doFilter(ExceptionFilter.java:57)
at org.jboss.seam.web.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:49)
at org.jboss.seam.web.MultipartFilter.doFilter(MultipartFilter.java:79)
at org.jboss.seam.web.SeamFilter$FilterChainImpl.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:49)
at org.jboss.seam.web.SeamFilter.doFilter(SeamFilter.java:84)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:215)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:188)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:210)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:174)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:127)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:117)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:108)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:151)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:870)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11BaseProtocol.java:665)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.PoolTcpEndpoint.processSocket(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:528)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.LeaderFollowerWorkerThread.runIt(LeaderFollowerWorkerThread.java:81)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPool$ControlRunnable.run(ThreadPool.java:685)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)

This is odd for two reasons: first the "property" (actually an action method) does exist in the backing bean, as evidenced by the fact that this works fine when I remove the comments. And second, since this markup is commented out, why is there even an attempt to access that method?

Since this works fine until I put Seam in the mix, it seems that this effect must be Seam-related. Any ideas what's going on here?

Steve Gollery