I just back checked the previous posts and realized that the format you're reporting for the addresses in the protect list don't match the format returned by $address(<nick>,5)
Imo, he is requesting some help here, this means that he should gave the right information to us, but he never stated clearly how he store his protect list.
Also, $address could be $null, he should try to debug this code with an echo with the value of %addr, and $nick should be $nvnick($chan,%a) in your last line
