Simulator crashes when viewing large strings

Question

My code is a simple modification to the camerademo, which converts the byte array to encoded Base64 string Single line of code like so:

. . .

//THIS KILLS THE SIMULATOR

strImage = Base64Encoder.encode(_raw);

. . .

This variable (strImage) is not used, so the code (on simulator) runs fine. If I try and use the string, e.g. Insert into a database (sqlite) the simulator crashes. If I set a break point after the above line of code the simulator crashes (disappears). Setting a watch on the variable kills the simulator too.

Thanks in advance.