Hi Alan,
Thanks for using Syncfusion product.
We have checked the reported problem in our end and we suspect the issue may occurs due to datasource property is not initialized to SfDataGrid. The SfDataGrid.View will be created only when set the DataSource property of the control. But if datasource is set with zero records, it will not causing any issues. Please refer the sample which we try to reproduce the issue in our end.
If we misunderstood your requirement, please provide more information like reproducible sample or any other customizations in SfDataGrid. This would help us to proceed further.
Regards,
Jagadeesan