I have a visualforce page with both actionSupport and some JavaScript interacting with an actionFunction.  The controller for the page is a standard controller (custom object) with one extension.  The goal of both the actionSupport and actionFunction is simply to rerender parts of the page.

The funny part is that the rerendering pieces will only work if the user has populated the name field... or if the URL had an Id in it, which means the record loaded in the standard controller already had a name.  Either way, the fancy rerenders simply don't happen unless the record the page is working with has a name.  I'm sure that behind the scenes there is a logical explanation... but I am baffled.

To recreate the scenario I will paste below a very simple page, class combo that uses the standard account controller.  Once you have created these in your org, navigate to the page and WITHOUT entering a name, change the "Industry" field a few times... nothing will happen.  Then go and give it a name, then change the Industry field again... magically, the rerender begins to work.  Any ideas?

Page:

<apex:page standardController="account" extensions="testWeirdBugExtension">
    <apex:form>
        <apex:pageBlock>
        
            <apex:pageBlockSection>
                <apex:inputField value="{!theRecord.Name}"/>
                <apex:pageblockSectionItem>
                    <apex:outputLabel>Industry</apex:outputLabel>
                    <apex:selectList value="{!theRecord.Industry}" multiselect="false" size="1">
                        <apex:selectOption itemValue="Retail" itemLabel="Retail"/>
                        <apex:selectOption itemValue="Manufacturing" itemLabel="Manufacturing"/>
                        <apex:actionSupport event="onchange" reRender="showOff"/>
                    </apex:selectList>
                </apex:pageblockSectionItem>
            </apex:pageBlockSection>
            
            <apex:outputPanel id="showOff">
                {!theRecord.Industry}
            </apex:outputPanel>

        </apex:pageBlock>
    </apex:form>
</apex:page>

Extension class:

public class testWeirdBugExtension {

    public Account theRecord {get;set;}

    public testWeirdBugExtension(ApexPages.StandardController controller) {
        theRecord = (account)controller.getRecord();
    }
}