Objects are Nothing when referenced by remote client - vb.net

Question

I have made several VB apps that communicate using Windows Remoting, but this is the first time I ran into this problem.
There are two programs in my project, a client and a server. The server program has a queue. The client program adds items to the queue by calling a server method. But when the server program checks the queue, it is empty.
Furthermore, the server program instantiates several classes, but when the client tries to use them, it finds that they are Nothing. So this is a general problem not just an issue with the queue per se.
I have had experience with threading problems in the past, so I assumed that this was some kind of threading problem. I tried using a delegate function, but that did not help.
Here is a snippet of code to illustrate where the problem appeared. My apologies for not knowing how to make it properly formatted, this is my first attempt.
' ====================================================================
' this class is instantiated on the server at startup time
Public Class CPAutoDispatcher
' EXAMPLE #1
Public mWLQueue As New Collection
' This function is called from the remote client using Windows Remoting
Public Function SendWorkList(ByVal theList As String) As Boolean
Dim objWL As New AutoWorkList
If Not parseWorkList(theList, objWL) Then Exit Function
Call mWLQueue.Add(objWL)
SendWorkList = True
End Function
' This function is called from the server
Public Sub Tick()
If mWLQueue.Count = 0 Then Exit Sub ' <-- THIS ALWAYS EXITS!
Dim objWL As AutoWorkList = mWLQueue.Item(1)
Call mWLQueue.Remove(1)
' ... do something with objWL ...
End Sub
' EXAMPLE #2
Private mServerReports() As CPAutoServerReport
Private mDelGNR As DEL_GetNewReport = AddressOf getNewReportDelegate
' This function is called from the server
Public Function ProcessMessage(objSR As CPAutoServerReport) As Boolean
If mServerReports Is Nothing Then
ReDim mServerReports(0)
mServerReports(0) = objSR
Else
' ... do something else ...
End If
End Function
' This function is called from the remote client using Windows Remoting
Public Function GetNewReport() As CPAutoServerReport
GetNewReport = mDelGNR.Invoke
End Function
Private Function getNewReportDelegate() As CPAutoServerReport
If mServerReports Is Nothing Then Exit Function ' <-- THIS ALWAYS EXITS!
' ... do something with mServerReports ...
End Function
End Class
' ================================================================
Example #1: Similar code in other projects works, so I expected mWLQueue and mServerReports to be reachable by both the server and the client. But they are not. The client finds mWLQueue, but it is empty.
Example #2: If this was simply a threading issue, I would expect the delegate to make thing right. But it does not. The client finds that mServerReports Is Nothing, even after it has been set.
My code is behaving as if there are TWO instances of my CPAutoDispatcher class, one for the server thread, and another for the client thread (the remoting calls). But there is only one global variable, which is referenced by both threads.
I am baffled by this situation. Am I missing something that should be obvious?

Answer 1

The ultimate cause of my problems was the presence of duplicate declarations, which did not cause a compile error, and so went unnoticed. When I removed the extra declarations, all of the weird behavior went away.
I suspect that somehow, an instance of the alternate class was instantiated automatically, and being uninitialized, had an empty queue and references that were Nothing. But I don't understand how that came about.