I have just had the same error, in my case concerning a ButtonPanel
I have a sequence of forms. Form1 is the starting point. Form2 inherits from Form1 and adds the ButtonPanel. Form3 inherits from Form2 and adds extra controls.
And all was working 100%
At some point, I got an IDE error message than Form3.dfm could not be found (I don't remember the exact message).
The code compiled OK, but when I attempted to open Form3, I got the dreaded "A component named ButtonPanel already exists."
It turned out, that the IDE had "rebuilt" the missing Form3.dfm and had recreated all the inherited items as objects. Just looking at the form it looks OK, but when looking at the form as text it was easy to see the problem. All the inheritence had been lost. Fortunately, the pas code was unchanged.
I had to go back in my source control and retrieve an earlier version of the Form3.dfm (fortunately that Form had no changes for some time)
Checked that the dfm as text was OK, and compiled. Problem gone.
Regards,