Openlayers error after removing selectFeature control

Question

I am using a selectFeature control for a point layer in OpenLayers 2.12. I have a problem after removing the selectFeature control from the map.

The reason why I want to remove the control is because the target layer of the control is destroyed and a new one is added every time the map is moved.

In this process I also remove the selectFeature control from the map and add a new one for the updated layer. But that does not work properly. After the first move/zoom event of the map get the following error:

Error: getFeatureFromEvent called on layer with no renderer. This usually means you destroyed a layer, but not some handler which is associated with it.

Here is a version of the function refresh, which is called on any pan/zoom event of the map:

var mylayer;
var mycontrol;
refresh = function(){

     // Remove previous layers and controls
    if(mylayer != null){
        mylayer.destroy();
        map.removeControl(mycontrol);
    }

    // Get mylayer
    mylayer = new OpenLayers.Layer.Vector("GeoJSON", 
        ...
    );      

    // Add layer and selectFeature control
    map.addLayer(mylayer);   
    mycontrol = new OpenLayers.Control.SelectFeature(mylayer,{  
        onSelect: function(e) {
        $("#tmpOutput1").html(e.attributes.name + "\n" + e.attributes.id);
        }
    });
    map.addControl(mycontrol);  
    mycontrol.activate();   

}

UPDATE

To solve the problem I had to change the layer/control removal to this:

if(mylayer != null){
    map.removeControl(mycontrol);
    mycontrol.destroy();

    map.removeLayer(mylayer);
    mylayer.destroy();
}

Note that here the order matters (at least in my example): first remove the control, then remove the layer.

Answer 1

In my opinion there is an issue with layer removal. To my understanding the function OpenLayers.Layer.destroy() will not remove the layer from map; according to the API docs, its mission is "to alleviate cyclic references which the Javascript garbage cleaner can not take care of on its own" (http://goo.gl/LvYxD).

To remove a layer, after calling the destroy() function, you must call the function OpenLayers.Map.removeLayer() (http://goo.gl/cQmkO).