wierd gridview behavior

[Techno]

ok so this works on the default page no problem.

but when I copy and paste the gridview control along with its events, or even create a new gridview control and recode - it doesnt work!!!

firstly, if I set the AllowAutoGenerateColumns=false, it doesnt work - doesnt show any results but if i take out that line, it shows the results and shows the column names from a strongly typed datatable.

Secondly, on the RowDataBound event, I have some code that does some formatting in the cells. On each cell it doesnt seem to get the header text but the headertext is there!

any ideas what could be causing this strange behavior?

edit: ok found out that the allowsorting generates a control inside that cell - a heading click link button. Thing is, how come this did not do it on the original page?
in addition, when I place my own custom buttons/images in the headerrow and press the image to do a postback and sort the results - nothing happens. it does not postback to the server even though it has all the eventhandlers added to the control!

but the original page has no problem like this