C# - NullReferenceException When Accessing Nested Properties in LINQ Query with Entity Framework Core
I'm working on a project and hit a roadblock. I'm integrating two systems and I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple. I'm encountering a `NullReferenceException` in my LINQ query when trying to access nested properties of entities fetched from the database using Entity Framework Core 6.0. I have a `User` entity that contains a navigation property to a `Profile` entity, which in turn has a collection of `Posts`. The goal is to retrieve users along with their profiles and posts, but for some users, the profile might be null. Here's the LINQ query I'm using: ```csharp var usersWithProfiles = await _context.Users .Include(u => u.Profile) .ThenInclude(p => p.Posts) .ToListAsync(); ``` However, when I attempt to access `Profile` properties in the view, I'm getting a `NullReferenceException` for users whose profiles are not set. I've tried adding a null check before accessing properties, but it seems cumbersome, especially if I want to display a default value for profiles without causing the application to crash. Here's an example of how I'm accessing the data in the view: ```csharp @foreach (var user in usersWithProfiles) { var profileInfo = user.Profile != null ? user.Profile.Name : "No Profile"; <div>@profileInfo</div> } ``` This works, but it feels like there should be a more elegant solution. Is there a way to modify my query or use projections to handle cases where `Profile` could be null without cluttering my view logic with null checks? Any best practices for handling these scenarios would be appreciated! I'm working on a API that needs to handle this. Any ideas what could be causing this? This is for a CLI tool running on Linux. How would you solve this? This issue appeared after updating to C# latest. Has anyone else encountered this? I'm on Windows 11 using the latest version of C#. Could this be a known issue?