If my externally driven tags have not been set to anything (yet) when the window opens. The value to be displayed is null. This cause java null pointer exceptions in other property bindings that expect non-null values.
Reason they have never been written to: comm failed.
Option 1: add a bunch of wrapper code everywhere that checks for null values and replace it with non-null. - tedious, error prone, hard to maintain, and ugly
Option 2: overlays still work. Just suppress error popup.
Option 3: allow for default value