"Fatal error: Call to a member function fetch_array() on a non-object in"

Dem folgenden code wird immer die Fehlermeldung angezeigt in den Titel:

while($row = $result->fetch_array(MYSQLI_ASSOC)) {
$rep_id       = $row['Report_ID'];
$rep_title    = $row['Report_Title'];
$rep_keywords = $row['Report_Keywords'];
$rep_cat      = $row['Report_Category_Subs'];
$rep_status   = $row['Report_Private'];

Irgendwelche Ideen, warum dies der Fall sein kann?

Dank

Edit: Hier ist der code, unter dem während

if ($name == $_SESSION['user']['User_ID'] || isAdmin()) {
//User is retrieving their own data or admin is retrieving data
global $conn;

$name = $conn->real_escape_string($name);
$sql = 
"SELECT * 
FROM reports 
WHERE User_ID = '".$name."'
ORDER BY Report_ID DESC
LIMIT 500;";

$result = $conn->query($sql);

$tbl  = '<form action="myreports.php" method="post" id="modify">
<select name="choice">
<option value="">--Select Bulk Option--</option>
<option value="reverse-status">Change Public Status</option>
<option value="change-cats">Change Categories/Keywords</option>
<option value="delete">Delete Reports</option>
</select>
<input class="formbutton" id="sub" type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /><br/>

<table class="table">';
$tbl .= '<tr>  <th class="no-bg"><input type="checkbox" id="selectall" class="left" />                                                                        
</th>  <th>ID</th>  <th>Title</th>  <th>Keywords</th>  <th>Category</th>    
<th>Public</th></tr>';