Anway, it turns out that when I used wireshark to examine communication between my ADOBE AIR

application that runs jquery/jqgrid from within.... I saw an OLD debug message getting appended to my JSON string.

As soon as I removed that the grid loaded.

SO........... Please let others know that if firebug is NOT an option that wireshark examination of communication between

the client (jqgrid) and the upstream server will ALSO show you POST/REPONSE messages....

ob_start();
print_r( $response );
$output = ob_get_clean();
file_put_contents( 'log.txt', file_get_contents( 'log.txt' ) . $output );

I see my $response array from json_encode looks like this

stdClass Object
(
    [page] => 1
    [total] => 1
    [records] => 2
    [rows] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 0
                    [cell] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => 0
                            [1] => peter
                            [2] => parker
                            [3] => 8976543420877
                        )

                )

            [1] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 1
                    [cell] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => 1
                            [1] => silver
                            [2] => surfer
                            [3] => 98765434245
                        )

                )
        )
)

Does this look correct?????????????

The HTML looks like
    <script src="lib/jquery/jquery-1.5.2.min.js" type="text/javascript" ></script>
     <script src="lib/jquery/jquery-ui.min.js" type="text/javascript"> </script>
    <script src="lib/jqgrid/i18n/grid.locale-en.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="lib/jqgrid/jquery.jqGrid.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <div id="search">
     <table id="list"></table>
     <div id="pager" ></div>
       </div>

The database and PHP are LOCAL for now and MYSQLi queries are getting the correct data everytime.

Javascript looks like

$('#list').jqGrid({
url:'http://localhost/ajax-search.p.....&#039;,
datatype: 'json',
postData: {
user: function() { return jQuery("input#username").val(); },
pass: function() { return jQuery("input#password").val(); },
firstname: function() { return jQuery("#firstname_label").val(); },
lastname: function() { return jQuery("#lastname_label").val(); },
number: function() { return jQuery("#number_label").val(); }
},
mtype: 'POST',
colNames:['id','First','Last', 'Number'],
colModel:[
{name: 'id',  index:'id',width:10,hidden:false},
{name: 'targetfirstname',  index:'targetfirstname',width:25},
{name: 'targetlastname',   index:'targetlastname',width:25},
{name: 'number',       index:'number', width:25},
],
rowNum:10,
width:340,
height: 25,
setGridHeight:45,
shrinkToFit:true,
rowList:[10,20,30],
imgpath: 'lib/jquery/themes/base/images',
pager: $('#pager'),
sortname: 'id',
viewrecords: true,
sortorder: "desc",
caption:"Edit records",
});

The PHP/MYSQL (prepared statemenst in use) looks like

$response = new stdClass();
$response->page =      $page;           // current page
$response->total =     $total_pages;    // total pages
$response->records =   $numrows;        // total records
                $stmt2->execute()
                || fail('MySQL execute', $db->error);
                $stmt2 -> bind_result($seltargetfirstname,$seltargetlastname,$selnumber )
                || fail('MySQL bind_result', $db->error);

$i=0;
while($row = $stmt2->fetch()) {
  fwrite($fh2,"\n I is $i \n");
  $response->rows[$i]['id']=$i;
  $response->rows[$i]['cell']=array($i,$seltargetfirstname,$seltargetlastname,$selnumber);
  $i++;
  fwrite($fh2, "\nTO ENCODER $i $seltargetfirstname $seltargetlastname $selnumber\n");
}

echo json_encode($response);

What I see is

[1] NO Apache/PHP/JSON encode or MYSQL  errors
[2] I can write out the returned MYSQLI fetch values to a file, all look good
[3] I generate a row number as I dont use/need these in my schema
[4] The grid generates in JQGRID and I can sort and see my query re-execute but  NO data

My server side is apache/PHP533 (with Json enabled) and MYSQL.

I keep getting my grid rendered correctly but no data.

Its tricky to invoke firebug to examine what the json_encode on the PHP server side did.

Is there anyway I can examine the JSON response from within my client side inside

my jquery code. I need to see whats INSIDE $response sent BACK to jqgrid

Pertinent code below

    <script src="lib/jquery/jquery-1.5.2.min.js" type="text/javascript" ></script>
     <script src="lib/jquery/jquery-ui.min.js" type="text/javascript"> </script>
    <script src="lib/jqgrid/i18n/grid.locale-en.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="lib/jqgrid/jquery.jqGrid.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <div id="search">
     <table id="list"></table>
     <div id="pager" ></div>
       </div>

$('#list').jqGrid({
url:'http://localhost/ajax-search.php',
datatype: 'json',
postData: {
user: function() { return jQuery("input#username").val(); },
pass: function() { return jQuery("input#password").val(); },
firstname: function() { return jQuery("#firstname_label").val(); },
lastname: function() { return jQuery("#lastname_label").val(); },
number: function() { return jQuery("#number_label").val(); }
},
mtype: 'POST',
colNames:['id','First','Last', 'Number'],
colModel:[
{name: 'id',  index:'id',width:10,hidden:false},
{name: 'targetfirstname',  index:'targetfirstname',width:25},
{name: 'targetlastname',   index:'targetlastname',width:25},
{name: 'number',       index:'number', width:25},
],
rowNum:10,
width:340,
height: 25,
setGridHeight:45,
shrinkToFit:true,
rowList:[10,20,30],
pager: $('#pager'),
sortname: 'id',
viewrecords: true,
sortorder: "desc",
caption:"Edit records",
});

$response = new stdClass();
$response->page =      $page;           // current page
$response->total =     $total_pages;    // total pages
$response->records =   $numrows;        // total records
                $stmt2->execute()
                || fail('MySQL execute', $db->error);
                $stmt2 -> bind_result($seltargetfirstname,$seltargetlastname,$selnumber )
                || fail('MySQL bind_result', $db->error);

$i=0;
while($row = $stmt2->fetch()) {
  fwrite($fh2,"\n I is $i \n");
  $response->rows[$i]['id']=$i;
  $response->rows[$i]['cell']=array($i,$seltargetfirstname,$seltargetlastname,$selnumber);
  $i++;
  fwrite($fh2, "\nTO ENCODER $i $seltargetfirstname $seltargetlastname $selnumber\n");
}

echo json_encode($response);

[1] NO Apache/PHP/JSON encode or MYSQL  errors
[2] I can write out the returned MYSQLI fetch values to a file, all look good
[3] I generate a row number as I dont use/need these in my schema
[4] The grid generates in JQGRID and I can sort and see my query re-execute but  NO data
    in the grid at all..