Cheers!

I have a commandButton which calls an action that returns a PageReference. It works in one part of the page but not another.  Here's the example:

I've got an page divided into left and right table columns. On the left, as standard list of objects. For this example I've used Contacts. Each row has a commandLink which reRenders (Ajax) the right hand side to reveal a form. The form contains a commandButton that calls an action which returns a Page redirect. But it doesn't work.

If I move the form to the bottom of the page, outside of all the action, it works fine.

What should I understand better about returning a PageReference?

Here's the VF page:

<apex:page standardController="Contact" extensions="ajaxPageRefIssueExt" recordSetVar="myContacts" sidebar="false" id="thisPage">

  <table><tr valign="top">
  
  <!-- here's my left-hand side -->
  <td width="600px"><apex:form >
  <apex:pageBlock >
        <apex:pageBlockTable value="{!myContacts}" var="c" rows="2">
          <apex:column value="{!c.Name}"/>
          <apex:column >
              <apex:commandLink reRender="thisPage:aForm" status="aFormStatus">
                    Show Form...
                  <apex:param name="contactId" value="{!c.Id}"/>
              </apex:commandLink>
          </apex:column> 
      </apex:pageBlockTable>
  </apex:pageBlock>
  </apex:form></td>
  
  <!-- and now my right-hand side -->
  <td>
      <apex:actionStatus startText="Getting a Form..." stopText="" id="aFormStatus"></apex:actionStatus>
         <apex:outputPanel id="aForm">
         <apex:outputPanel rendered="{!NOT(ISNULL(contactId))}"> 
         Uh oh...if this is reRendered by an Ajax call, this commandButton page redirect gets lost!?
                <apex:form ><apex:commandButton action="{!takeAction}" value="Submit..."/></apex:form>
         </apex:outputPanel>
         </apex:outputPanel>
  </td></tr></table>  
  
  But it works fine down here...
  <apex:form ><apex:commandButton action="{!takeAction}" value="Submit..."/></apex:form>
</apex:page>

and my extension class:

public class ajaxPageRefIssueExt {
	
    public ajaxPageRefIssueExt(ApexPages.StandardSetController controller) 
    {
    }
    
    public String getContactId() { return System.currentPageReference().getParameters().get('contactId'); }

    public PageReference takeAction()
    {
    	PageReference p = Page.ajaxPageRefIssueB;
    	p.setRedirect(true);
    	return p;
    }
}