I have a component that reads one of the parameters on a page to get the record information for an account. The problem is that the main page has some HTML DIV sections that act like dialog boxes. When the Ajax code runs for these and the page is refreshed, the parameters on the URL get cleared. The main page keeps the record information so it shows its data fine but the component doesn't have access to the record in the controller and the parameter it needs is not present.

I can protect against an exception by not performing the query but I cannot render the data that should be displayed because the instance of the component's controller is new and the record ID is unknown.

Is there any way I can get a reference to the controller so that I can find the record ID? I can't render the page in the component and then parse it because it is seen as a nested getContent() call.

Ideas? Work arounds?