In this scenario, the Browsable(false) attribute is set to both properties which are used to create the self-referencing hierarchy. When the columns are predefined, running that application will freeze as the RadGridView could not correctly get the parent row. If the columns are auto-generated, this behavior is not observed. 

This is not exactly a real solution as setting the Browsable(false) attribute will remove the properties from the source. However, the control should not freeze the application.