NullReferenceException while using Selenium

Question

( StartGoogle
   Source: UnitTest1.cs line 26
   Duration: 6.3 sec

  Message: 
System.NullReferenceException : Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

  Stack Trace: 
Tests.StartGoogle() line 29)

using OpenQA.Selenium;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome;
//using WebDriverManager.DriverConfigs.Impl;

namespace PitauPortal
{
    public class Tests
    {
        IWebDriver driver;
        [SetUp]
        public void StartBrowser()

        {
            //new WebdriverChromeDriver.DriverManager().SetUpDriver(new ChromeConfig());

            IWebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
          

            driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15);
            driver.Url = "https://www.google.com/";
            driver.Manage().Window.Maximize();

        }

       [Test]
        public void StartGoogle()
        {
            String searchText = "Latest News";
            driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//input[@name='q']")).SendKeys(searchText);

        }
    }
}

Answer 1

You've defined a local variable the same name as a field, which defaults to null.

Set this.driver in the StartBrowser() function, not define a new reference.