It seems strange that you are getting the error on that line as you have already made the check that both result and result._return are not null. It is more likely that the line...
childid.dataProvider = photoFeed;
...is causing the error because childid
is null? This would probably be because you tab navigator has not created the second tab yet. Try adding creationPolicy="all" to the tab navigator to make sure it has been created.
<mx:TabNavigator id="viewstack2"
selectedIndex="0"
creationPolicy="all"
historyManagementEnabled="false"
width="100%" height="100%">
By default it is set to 'auto' which means it will only create panels other than the default when you click on them.
James Hay
2010-03-31 14:05:40