Ok, I ran the stupid chapter 6 from A to Z. On page 324, we can test the Polls control on the master page. When I try to run the page, I get this incredible annoying error:

It stops on "PollsProvider.cs" file, telling me that it cannot run a null argument on the

static public PollsProvider Instance
        {
            get
            {
                if (_instance == null)
                    _instance = (PollsProvider)Activator.CreateInstance(
                       Type.GetType(Globals.Settings.Polls.ProviderType)) ;
                return _instance;
            }
        }

I run the sample project, it runs fine. But if I run mine (copy and paste) it doesn't. I hate when this book doesn't cover all the coding and leaves you guess what to do. Since the provided code is not segmented on chapters but on the last chapter which you can't rely on the chapter you read.

Have you made sure that you added the providerType code for the PollsElement class in ConfigSection.cs? Make sure that you have a providerType too.