resolved it

ok... though it's not in the documentation as far as I could find, if the class inherits Hashtable, you need to include
VB Code:
  1. Protected Sub New(ByVal info As Runtime.Serialization.SerializationInfo, ByVal context As Runtime.Serialization.StreamingContext)
  2.         MyBase.New(info, context)
  3.     End Sub

If the class uses no constructor, you'll need to add a blank one.