Sudden error: unrecognised data

My server client app was working fine and suddenly my new client is not recognising the incoming data anymore.
To debug i print the incoming data and have a msgbox displaying it & the only character showing is a question mark.
I dont have a clue what has gone wrong - i havent even worked on the winsock...

I have found the error:
I had a statement:
Dim strData as string
which I modified to:
dim strData, strPing as string

I thought this statement simply meant dim these to values as a string but obivously something more complex is occuring. Any enlightenment?
Thanx

dim strData, strPing as string
Will create 1 variant and one string.

To make them both strings you need to use the more verbose
Dim strData As String, strPing As String