I'm glad that worked. Hope you're not working all weekend long. :)

>She shoots, she scores!! Thanks a million, Cathi.
>
>>Hi Keith,
>>
>>You need to set the memory stream position back to 0 before you attempt to deserialize. The problem is that the position is still sitting at the end.
>>
>>>I'm getting an error - "The root element is missing." when attempting to deserialize from a memory stream into an object. What is driving me nuts is that I tested by saving the stream to a file right before serializing the object, and then saving the stream to a different file right before deserializing, and the files look structurally identical to me.
>>>
>>>The serialized file:
>>>

>>>  <?xml version="1.0" ?>
>>>- <ArrayOfTicketPurchaseItem xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
>>> xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
>>>- <TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>- <EventItem>
>>>  <Key>7</Key>
>>>  <Value>High Holy Days (all services)</Value>
>>>  </EventItem>
>>>- <SectionItem>
>>>  <Key>1</Key>
>>>  <Value>VIP</Value>
>>>  </SectionItem>
>>>  <AdultAmount>250</AdultAmount>
>>>  <ChildAmount>0</ChildAmount>
>>>  <AdultQuantity>2</AdultQuantity>
>>>  <ChildQuantity>1</ChildQuantity>
>>>  </TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>  </ArrayOfTicketPurchaseItem>

>>>
>>>And the file that I saved when trying to deserialize:
>>>

>>>  <?xml version="1.0" ?>
>>>- <ArrayOfTicketPurchaseItem xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
>>> xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
>>>- <TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>- <EventItem>
>>>  <Key>3</Key>
>>>  <Value>Rosh Hashanah</Value>
>>>  </EventItem>
>>>- <SectionItem>
>>>  <Key>2</Key>
>>>  <Value>Reserved</Value>
>>>  </SectionItem>
>>>  <AdultAmount>75</AdultAmount>
>>>  <ChildAmount>0</ChildAmount>
>>>  <AdultQuantity>5</AdultQuantity>
>>>  <ChildQuantity>2</ChildQuantity>
>>>  </TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>- <TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>- <EventItem>
>>>  <Key>7</Key>
>>>  <Value>High Holy Days (all services)</Value>
>>>  </EventItem>
>>>- <SectionItem>
>>>  <Key>2</Key>
>>>  <Value>Reserved</Value>
>>>  </SectionItem>
>>>  <AdultAmount>175</AdultAmount>
>>>  <ChildAmount>0</ChildAmount>
>>>  <AdultQuantity>2</AdultQuantity>
>>>  <ChildQuantity>2</ChildQuantity>
>>>  </TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>- <TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>- <EventItem>
>>>  <Key>3</Key>
>>>  <Value>Rosh Hashanah</Value>
>>>  </EventItem>
>>>- <SectionItem>
>>>  <Key>0</Key>
>>>  <Value>Inner Circle</Value>
>>>  </SectionItem>
>>>  <AdultAmount>500</AdultAmount>
>>>  <ChildAmount>0</ChildAmount>
>>>  <AdultQuantity>1</AdultQuantity>
>>>  <ChildQuantity>2</ChildQuantity>
>>>  </TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>- <TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>- <EventItem>
>>>  <Key>7</Key>
>>>  <Value>High Holy Days (all services)</Value>
>>>  </EventItem>
>>>- <SectionItem>
>>>  <Key>0</Key>
>>>  <Value>Inner Circle</Value>
>>>  </SectionItem>
>>>  <AdultAmount>500</AdultAmount>
>>>  <ChildAmount>0</ChildAmount>
>>>  <AdultQuantity>5</AdultQuantity>
>>>  <ChildQuantity>2</ChildQuantity>
>>>  </TicketPurchaseItem>
>>>  </ArrayOfTicketPurchaseItem>
>>>

>>>
>>>Sorry about the lame IE formatting, but the source of the deserialization data is a Text field in a table that does not have any formatting at all.
>>>
>>>Has anyone had this missing root element problem already and can give me some pointers on how to avoid it?