Hi:

I have been trying to create a web application that provides suport
for two membership/profile databases: one for private users and one
for another set of users.  These tw user have a totally different set
of profile attributes.

I added the following code to my web.config (under system.web):

<membership defaultProvider="PortalMembershipProvider">
 <providers>
   <remove name="PortalMembershipProvider"/>
   <remove name="PublicMembershipProvider"/>
   <add name="PortalMembershipProvider"
type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider..."
connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" .../>
   <add name="PublicMembershipProvider"
type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider..."
connectionStringName="PublicUserProfiles" .../>
 </providers>
</membership>
<profile defaultProvider="PortalProfileProvider">
 <providers>
   <remove name="PortalProfileProvider"/>
   <remove name="PublicProfileProvider"/>
   <add name="PortalProfileProvider"
connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" .../>
   <add name="PublicProfileProvider"
connectionStringName="PublicUserProfiles" .../>
 </providers>
 <properties>
   <add provider="PortalProfileProvider" name="FirstName"
type="System.String" serializeAs="Xml"/>
   <add provider="PortalProfileProvider" name="LastName"
type="System.String" serializeAs="Xml"/>
   <group name="PhoneNumbers">
     <add provider="PublicProfileProvider" name="Phone"
type="System.String" serializeAs="Xml"/>
     <add provider="PublicProfileProvider" name="Fax"
type="System.String" serializeAs="Xml"/>
   </group>
 </properties>
</profile>
<roleManager defaultProvider="PortalRoleProvider" enabled="true">
 <providers>
   <add name="PortalRoleProvider"
connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" .../>
   <add name="PublicRoleProvider"
connectionStringName="PublicUserProfiles" .../>
 </providers>
</roleManager>

All connection string names and values have been verified.

I try to add a user via the Membership API, targeting a specific
provider from above, I use the following code:
     MembershipCreateStatus status;
     user =
Membership.Providers["PortalMembershipProvider"].CreateUser(username,
password, email, "", "", true, Guid.NewGuid(), out status);
This works without issue.

I do the same ting for adding the new user to a role:

Roles.Providers["PortalRoleProvider"].AddUsersToRoles(userStringArray,
roleStringArray);
This works without issue as well.

Now here is the problem.  When I try to perform a similar action to
add a profile for the new user, I use the following code:
    section =
(ProfileSection)WebConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.web/
profile");
    profile.Providers["PortalProfileProvider"].Initialize(

user.UserName,

section.Providers["PortalProfileProvider"].Parameters
                                                           );

I recieve an error stating that the profile provider "reference is not
set to an instance of an object."

Is there any way to get around this?

Best Regards,
Mike