Hello David,
I guess that you are getting an exception about the length of the data serialized as JSON, saying that it exceeds the default MaxJsonLength. You could see the FAQ Section of the documentation about troubleshooting in such cases. I am attaching a sample application, showing a dropdown list with 20000 items. Please check if this works in your scenario.
Greetings,
Dimiter Madjarov
the Telerik team
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