hi, I am getting garbage charaters in the dataset after about 80 datarows. I am getting this problem only when I connect to a remote database. This problem does not happen when the database is local. I do not see any garbage character when I run the same query in TOAD, connecting to the same database. Technical Description: The Database is on ORACLE 9i. I am using VS 2005 environment to develop an application in VB.NET. The dataset is used to populate controls like datagridview and combobox in vb.net. Any help or pointers to possible solutions/ cause would be appreciated. Regards, Devesh Verma