1. I use jquery 1.4.2 and jqGrid 3.6.5. with no problems.

2. The order of the data coming back doesn't matter.

The only thing I see wrong with you code is the extra comma at the end of this line:

{name:'label', label:'Label', width:90},

I don't see anything wrong with your json.

Sometimes I get the same hanging, but normally it's because I made some change to some js that creates an error (like an 'undefined' variable somewhere).

tim