XSLT producing different results via debugger and xslt.Transform()

I'm producing the body of an email via an xsl. I've been having a problem with the html nested inside a <table> tag not displaying correctly. With a bit of help from the good folks over at the asp.net forums, I've tracked the problem down to getting different results if I run the xsl via the debugger or via a compiled transform.

When I debug the xsl it produces

      <table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="..." id="tmsEmailTable">
        <tr>
          <th width="50%" align="center"><b>Issue</b></th>
          <th width="50%" align="center"><b>Resolution</b></th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td>Missing Acknowledgement date</td>
          <td><p> Test test</p></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td>Missing Agent and/or Seller signature</td>
        ....
    </table>

And that's absolutely correct and displays perfectly if I save the result as an html file. But when I use xslt.Transform(..), where xslt is a compiled transform, it produces

<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="..." id="tmsEmailTable">
            <tr><th width="50%" align="center"><b>Issue</b></th><th width="50%" align="center"><b>Resolution</b></th></tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    Missing Acknowledgement date
                </td>
                <td></td>
            </tr>
        </table>
    </p><p> Test test</p></td></tr><tr>
        <td>Missing Agent and/or Seller signature</td>
        <td>
     .....
    </table>

And to make it even more interesting, that extra </table> tag and the misplaced table data only occur on the first table row, but the table rows are generated by an xsl:for-each.

The relevant bit of the xsl is:

          <table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="..." id="tmsEmailTable">
            <tr>
              <th width="50%" align="center">
                <b>Issue</b>
              </th>
              <th width="50%" align="center">
                <b>Resolution</b>
              </th>
            </tr>

            <xsl:for-each select="emailbody/checklist/item">
              <xsl:if test="string-length(select='issue')>0">
                <tr>
                  <td>
                    <xsl:value-of select="issue" disable-output-escaping="yes" />
                  </td>
                  <td>
                    <xsl:value-of select="resolution" disable-output-escaping="yes" />
                  </td>
                </tr>
              </xsl:if>
             </xsl:for-each>

          </table>

The code that generates the compiled transform and the (incorrect) output is:

            Dim xslt As XslCompiledTransform = New XslCompiledTransform(True)
            'Dim xslt As XslTransform = New XslTransform

            xslt.Load(templatePath) 

            Dim objStream As Stream = New MemoryStream(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xmlData))
            Dim strbldrXML As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder()
            Dim objXmlReader As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create(objStream)
            Dim objXmlWriter As XmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(strbldrXML)

            xslt.Transform(objXmlReader, objXmlWriter)

I've checked that templatePath is pointing to the right file, and the source file I'm debugging the xsl against was copied from the xmlData parameter, so I know the same stuff is getting fed into it.

I've been chasing this for days, and I'm about ready to quit and go get a job at a fast food joint. I'm not wonderful with xsl in general, or xsl in .NET in particular. Somebody PLEASE tell me I'm doing something stupid....

Rebecca M. Riordan