Forms Data Controls :: Hit Counter Not Updating Except In Debug Mode?

I have a webcast site that lists them in a gridview. Users have two options, either play the video directly or go to a details page on it and play from there. When the user plays the video directly I need to update the count of how many times it has been viewed. When I run the page from my local machine in debug mode it correctly updates the counter. When I run the page regularly, both from my local machine and on the server it does not update the count, but it does open and play the video. It doesn't give any error messages in any method of running. The only difference between running it on my local machine vs production server is that I have to comment out the authentication code on my local machine. The authentication programming was created by someone else with far more knowledge and I only barely understand how it works. For that matter this site was originally created by that same person. He included the hit counter on the details page but forgot to add it on the front gridview page, so I'm modifying it based on his code on the second page.Important parts of code behind and part of the gridview listed below. Yes I know the means of creating the first connection string is bizarre. I think it has something to do with the authenticate files that makes it work. In the past it has always worked for all connections in code behind but for some reason wouldn't work in the btnPlay subroutine this time, hence the second connection string definition.

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