By the way, you are running v3.1, correct? Did you start out with the version you're using or did you upgrade from an earlier version?

Installed V3.1 ... I didn't upgrade.

Tha tfix you added didn't work either ... i'm using php 4.30

I even deleted the forum (54) and created another one (55) and that didn't work either ....

This is weird... I really don't see why the news isn't working when everything else works fine... If you want, you can try replacing the part for the news with the query below:
That strips out the parts for the avatar and a couple of other things. It also removes the variables and the forum id (55) is just hard coded in there.

That didn't do it either ... i'm tellin ya that there's somethin with the variable names that not gettin posted.

I'd like to copy your templates you have working (for the news) into mine, to see if thats the issue here.

Another thing ... does the myvbindex.php file have to keep it's name (Can I rename the file?)?

I renamed it to index.php inside the root directory above my forum folder.

This is the part in the "index template" that's susposed to post the contents of the news variable into the index page ... from the MyVbIndex templates that were created during the install:

Where in the "myvbindex.php" file, where "$newsbit" being called ... from this template?

The only 2 that should really matter are the index and index_newsbits since it would at least show something besides a blank page if all the settings and these 2 templates are correct I've attached them in a text file here (I would post them, but it would replace the color variables with vb.org's).

And yes, you can rename the file to whatever you would like.

The $newsbit variable is what calls the index_newsbits template. It's on line 443 of the myvbindex.php file.

eval("\$newsbits .= \"".gettemplate('index_newsbits')."\";");

I noticed that the $index_footer isn't being called either!

Yikes!

Um... Did you check that your index template had the right content? What other major hacks do you have installed? I just saw that you have 96 hacks installed, so it's possible that another hack could be affecting something.

I don't have that many installed from my profile. That's how many i've installed to test in the ime i've been a registered member.

This is baffling me but I know now what could be the problem. It seems that none of the templates from the install are being read.

I changed from your index_footer template ... to the regular footer template, and it worked. So in theory, I think that the templates that were installed are not being recognized as default templates. They might have to be redesignated as custom templates instead, in order for them to work.

Is there a way to reassign the templates to custom ... instead of default?