How to set value of icefaces inputTextarea control

I'm using Icefaces 1.8.2 and an ice:inputTextarea control, and I can't figure why the value is not getting set here:

.jsp

<ice:inputTextarea binding="#{easp$RecordSearch.repairRemark}" id="repairRemark"
  partialSubmit="true" style="height:40px; width:100%;" />

.java

//bean
private HtmlInputTextarea repairRemark = new HtmlInputTextarea();
public HtmlInputTextarea getRepairRemark() {
    return repairRemark;
}
public void setRepairRemark(HtmlInputTextarea hit) {
    this.repairRemark = hit;
}

....
public String button3_action() {
    ...

    //code that sets value
    String myVal = "new value";
    this.repairRemark.setValue(myVal);

    ...
    return null;
}

The code that sets the value is part of a button click event that I know is getting fired because I'm setting several other Icefaces controls, and all the other setters are working except this one. I just noticed that it actually appears to set the text very briefly, but disappears instantly. I checked all the code on that page, and I'm almost certain there is no other setter overwriting it. Does anyone know what is going here?

Update:
It does not seem to be a "phase" related issue, as this event is being processed in the INVOKE_APPLICATION phase. Also to note, I'm experiencing the same issue with the jsf h:inputTextarea

I found the cause and solution. The cause was the ice:commandButtons that were triggering this click event were in a column in a ice:dataTable. The ice:dataTable had an ice:rowSelector that seemed like it was causing an additional server request when a button was clicked. When I removed the ice:rowSelector, the problem went away.

The solution was to add either toggleOnClick="false" or toggleOnInput="false" to the ice:rowSelector. I added both, just in case.

http://res.icesoft.org/docs/v1_8_2/tld/ice/rowSelector.html

Hope this helps anyone else that runs into this issue.