jQuery Grid Plugin - jqGrid

I have a gridComplete event, which sets the selection using setSelection. In simple scenarios this works just fine. But I have a more complex scenario, where this causes a second grid to fail during loading (the loadtext of the second grid , does not disappear). After that, selecting a row in the first grid does not make the second grid reload anymore. Its the setSelection on the second grid that seems to fail.

What I found is, that if I execute setSelection with one second delay (using the setTimeout function), everything works fine ( I copied the idea from the refresh button event handler). However, the delay is quite annoying, I was hoping the gridComplete would be the correct time and place to use the setSelection.

Reloading of the second grid is done by using the onSelectRow event of the first grid. I don't understand why the delay is needed.

It seems, a javascript error is triggered, when I use the solution without the delay. The error is : this[0].innerHTML is undefined, somewhere in jquery code. The call stack reveals its origin is from the grid.setSelection command in my gridComplete event.

I can not provide a simple example, because it part of a complex web application, where jqrid scripts are generated through server side helper functions. Maybe some hints in which direction I need to look, to solve the problem?