for some reason I'm getting a strange crash whenever I make the get tab icon item method  for my item tab use a reffrence class instead of specifiying it in the creative tab class http://pastebin.com/MfVp7bSf

 

 

 

did you override the getDamage method in the item that you are using? does it have a maxDamage? What comes first the chicken or the egg? By my last statement you are saying you changed to a reference class, is this reference class or item defined and loaded before the creative tab?

 

at net.minecraft.item.ItemStack.getItemDamage(ItemStack.java:265)

 

With out the code of what you mentioned (CreativeTab, ReferenceClass, Item) it's difficult to help with a null pointer error, because something somewhere is not passing an item in that stack, and better yet if it is, that item is not passing anything out as a damage value.

my item class doesn't have any damage methods. it doesn't have a max damage either

 

    @Override

    public Item getTabIconItem()

      {

          return Reference.ITEM_ICON;

    //return ModItems.ItemRandomThing;

   

    }

 

 

public static final GenericItem ITEM_ICON = ModItems.ItemRandomThing;

 

I haven't done anything with durability because I don't intend this item to have durability.

 

nevermind I decided to make a getter method in the Reference class that returns the item rather than referring to a constant that is equal to the item.this fixed the problem

Yep, a constant like that is not possible to use with Items or Blocks because the Item / Block is not initialized until later, so when you assign the constant the reference is null.