Getting “Object reference not set to an instance” but column name exists

Question

The NewsCaption field exists (both display and internal name is NewsCaption). I even saw it exists when I went to watch window and show this field listed in the SchemaXML for the fields element. I am kinda lost.

SPList spList = web.Lists["My Picture Library"];
SPQuery spQuery = new SPQuery();
spQuery.Query=@"<Where>
            <Eq>
                <FieldRef Name='Active' />
                <Value Type='Boolean'>1</Value>
            </Eq>
        </Where>";
SPListItemCollection collListItems = spList.GetItems(spQuery);
foreach (SPListItem listItem in collListItems)
{
    string newsCaption = listItem["NewsCaption"].ToString();

Answer 1

Is there data in the field that you are calling .ToString on? It sounds like maybe the field is null.

Answer 2

Instead of using:

listItem["NewsCaption"].ToString()

Use:

Convert.ToString(listItem["NewsCaption"])

Answer 3

I can't see your whole snippet related tot he spList.GetItems(...) call. Do you have a view name specified? I notice you have not specified the SPQuery.ViewFields property value to define what fields you want returned by your query. It is a good practice to always specific the fields you want returned from a query.

The field is either null, or the field is not being returned in the default fields list for the query.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spquery.viewfields.aspx