Accordion does not always open the specified pane when initialized

Supplying a valid pane index with the "active" option does not always work properly. Likewise, setting the 'active' option with a later script seems to hold equally buggy results.

I am sorry that I cannot post explicit code as my work requires a bit of non-disclosure, however I will try to provide as much information as I can.

I have an asp.net page with form controls in my accordion content. The forms do regular postbacks as different inputs are changed. As a way of saving the accordion state, I attached a function to save the index of the open pane to a hidden form element. Every time the pane index changes, it updates the value of the hidden form, which then gets passed back to the accordion at every postback.

The initial page load gives a hidden field that looks something like this:

<asp:HiddenField id="AccordionIndex" Value="0" runat="server">

In the header, I have the following:

<link type="text/css" href="css/ui-lightness/jquery-ui.css" rel="Stylesheet" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="scripts/jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-ui.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
    .noConflict();
    jQuery(document).ready(function($) {

        $('#accordion').accordion({
            collapsible: true;
            autoHeight: false;
            navigation: true;
            active: <%= this.AccordionIndex.Value %>,
            header: 'h3'
        }).bind( 'accordionchange', function(event, ui) {
            document.getElementById('<%= this.AccordionIndex.ClientID %>'.value = $('#accordion').accordion( 'option', 'active' );
        });

    )};
</script>

After doing some relatively exhaustive testing, I was able to determine that the onchange event was updating the hidden field properly, which was correctly set at each postback. In addition, I was able to determine that the option passed upon initialization was also correct, without quotes, and looked proper syntactically. However, the accordion would randomly open up to the last pane upon initialization, regardless of the option passed to it.

I engineered a hack, called right after the initialization in an attempt to combat this problem:

var accordionIndex = document.getElementById('<%= this.AccordionIndex.ClientID %>').value;
if (accordionIndex == "false") {
    $('#accordion').accordion( 'option', 'active', false );
}
else {
    $('#accordion').accordion( 'option', 'active', parseInt(accordionIndex));
}

In version 1.8.8, this fixed this particular problem (though it should have been unnecessary).

The original problem has persisted in version 1.8.9, and the last pane (pane 2) randomly opens on the page load, contrary to the option that it has been passed on initialization.

However, my hack is causing a new side-effect. Now, when the page is first initialized, the first accordion pane is rendered as open, but then immediately slides shut. The initialization code passing it an index of 0, as well as the hack firing an event to set active pane to 0 should both be redundant, however it seems that the second call to make pane 0 active is actually closing it.

would appreciate a fix.