ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromItem() returns null?

I found something that worked better for my case in this StackOverflow question:

Get row in datagrid

By putting in UpdateLayout and a ScrollIntoView calls before calling ContainerFromItem or ContainerFromIndex, you cause that part of the DataGrid to be realized which makes it possible for it return a value for ContainerFromItem/ContainerFromIndex:

dataGrid.UpdateLayout();dataGrid.ScrollIntoView(dataGrid.Items[index]);var row = (DataGridRow)dataGrid.ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromIndex(index);

If you don't want the current location in the DataGrid to change, this probably isn't a good solution for you but if that's OK, it works without having to turn off virtualizing.

Finally sorted out the problem... By adding VirtualizingStackPanel.IsVirtualizing="False" into my XAML, everything now works as expected.

On the downside, I miss out on all the performance benefitst of the virtualization, so I changed my load routing to async and added a "spinner" into my listbox while it loads...

object viewItem = list.ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromItem(item);if (viewItem == null){    list.UpdateLayout();    viewItem = list.ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromItem(item);    Debug.Assert(viewItem != null, "list.ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromItem(item) is null, even after UpdateLayout");}