for those who helped me, sorry for wasting your time. I figured it out... really stupid but I was setting the session variables incorrectly in a previous webform before therefore the session variables were null.
the reason that there was no error was (my guess), I was setting the session variables on button_click function yet also having a postbackurl. the postbackurl must have overridden the button_click function.
So, For future reference. Originally I had
string name = Session["name"].ToString();
lblName.Text = name; //this didnt work
I corrected this by
Session["name"] = lblName.Text;