It is possible for mysql_store_result() to return NULL following a successful call to mysql_query(). When this happens, it means one of the following conditions occurred:

You can always check whether the statement should have produced a nonempty result by calling mysql_field_count(). If mysql_field_count() returns zero, the result is empty and the last query was a statement that does not return values (for example, an INSERT or a DELETE). If mysql_field_count() returns a nonzero value, the statement should have produced a nonempty result. See the description of the mysql_field_count() function for an example.

You can test for an error by calling mysql_error() or mysql_errno().