Not sure if that helps, but I might add that after a fresh install with unpopulated DBs (as long as it says "No roster data has been found in the database") the $navbar works just fine.
But as soon as I run the cronjob to pull the data, the $navbar just disappears...
(The actual roster script works perfectly fine, though.)
[edit] Clicked on the link to the
Trinitas board in this thread, and seems like they got the same issue - missing vB navbar on top.