mybase.load stops loading when calling a function vb.net - vb.net

Question

I step through this code and find out that the function is not only never called but the rest of the myBase.Load never completes what is going on here.
All outside references are displayed now. Program never hits the lines surrounded in ** and does run frmMain_Load as first item. the stepthrough icon does land ON the line that starts with reader= but never calls runAsIsQuery (breakpoints don't catch and stepthrough just evaporates). then it shows me frmMain without proccessing any other code from frmMain_Load nor from runAsISQuery
Private Sub frmMain_Load(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
sqlstring = "SELECT Nickname FROM tblBikeInfo"
reader = sql.runAsIsQuery(cnn, sqlstring) 'never fires
**If 1 = 1 Then**
'ummmm never comes back here either
End If
Extra details asked for about the other references these are in frmMain as global vars
Dim reader As OleDbDataReader
Dim sql As OLEDB_Handling 'custom class
Public cnn = MotorcyleDB.GetConnection
Function from Custom Class (OLEDB_Handling)
**Public Function runAsIsQuery(connection As OleDbConnection, SQL As String) As OleDbDataReader**
Dim reader As OleDbDataReader
Dim command As New OleDbCommand(SQL)
command.Connection = connection
Try
connection.Open()
reader = command.ExecuteReader()
Return reader
Catch ex As Exception
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
End Try
End Function
Connection string class called (MotorcyleDB)
Public Shared Function GetConnection() As OleDbConnection
Return New OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=C:\************\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\MotorcycleMinder\MotorcycleMinder\MotorcycleServiceLog11.accdb")
End Function

Answer 1

I found this:
http://blog.adamjcooper.com/2011/05/why-is-my-exception-being-swallowed-in.html
This is a snippet from the site.
If these conditions are met:
You are running on a 64-bit version of Windows (whether your application is built for 32-bit or 64-bit doesn’t matter; only the bit
depth of the OS)
You are building a WinForms app
You are debugging the application with Visual Studio (using default
options for Exception catching)
Your main form has a Load event handler
During the execution of your Load handler, an exception occurs
Then:
The exception will be silently swallowed by the system and, while your
handler will not continue execution, your application will continue
running.If you wrap your handler code in a try/catch block, you can
still explicitly catch any thrown exceptions. But if you don’t, you’ll
never know anything went wrong.
Note that all of the conditions must be met. If, for instance, you run
the application without debugging, then an unhandled exception still
be correctly thrown.
There is also a workaround on the site. But I would put the code in a try catch block, or put the entire thing in the Initializer/Constructor.