Shared Object issue in chat program

programming flash
1

Hi Folks…

Posted this in another forum too. I have this set of codes for a simple chat program using SharedObjects. When I run the program, I type my name into the ‘chatName’ box and my message in the 'textInput’box. However when click on the ‘Send’ button or press the Enter key, I am getting the following error:

 
TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at TextChat/sendMsg()

As mentioned in the error message I looked at the ‘sendMsg()’ function. I realised the problem was comming from the line :

 
text_so.setProperty ("msg",chatName.text +": "+ textInput.text);

I am wondering how ‘text_so’ can be a null object reference. It was already instantantiated and setup earlier in the code. I hope someone can shed light on this. The relevant lines of code are below. Thanks guys.

Setting up of the shared object function

 
private function doSO (e:NetStatusEvent):void
{
   good=e.info.code == "NetConnection.Connect.Success";
   if (good)
   {
    //Set up shared object
    text_so=SharedObject.getRemote("test",nc.uri,false);
    text_so.connect (nc);
    text_so.addEventListener (SyncEvent.SYNC,checkSO);
   }
}

The ‘sendMsg’ function

private function sendMsg (e:MouseEvent):void
{
   noName=(chatName.text=="<Enter Name>" || chatName.text=="");
   if (noName)
   {
    textArea.appendText ("You must enter your name 
");
   }
   else
   {
    text_so.setProperty ("msg",chatName.text +": "+ textInput.text);
    textArea.appendText (chatName.text +": "+textInput.text + "
");
    textInput.text="";
   }
}