or at least I think it should be simple.... here is a snippet:
===================
Public Class Form1
Friend r as int16
Friend i as int16
Friend ValueArray(20,50) as string ' (0 to 20, 0 to 50)

Sub LoadAllFiles
Dim FileString as String
FileString = ""

'then I do stuff to grab a string from a txt file

'I check to make sure I have a string and valid references first:
msgbox (i & " " & r & " " & FileString) 'which gives me a msgbox: 0 0
Textstring from my textfile

ValueArray(i,r) = FileString '<-- this is where it seems to bomb out.

end sub
===================

I'm still new to try/catch, so I welcome feedback on what else I need to do
to diagnose this issue. I also looked through all extensions (?) of the
ValueArray (such as .copy, .chars, etc) and didn't see anything that looked
useful. I'm used to old VBA where I can just set my array equal to whatever
I'm setting it too, which is the syntax I used above.

tia for any help or advice,
Keith

It took hours of trial and error, but I finally figured it out- I was using
the erase statement within my sub to make sure the array was cleared, but
apparently in dotnet that actually erases the array size and everything. Now
it works.