[Auran]

I have a couple of questions - I think I understand what you want to happen.

I'm presuming you're running on vB4.
* Whereabouts would this template/php run from?
* Are you aware of the vb:foreach function available in templates?
* Are you sure your SQL query is working correctly? Do you have any access to something like phpMyAdmin to be able to test your query?

An abridged version of the code I wrote to pull all unread posts from subscribed threads is below - followed by the template code which displays the posts in forum sidebar.

PHP Code:

$posts = $this->registry->db->query_read_slave("
    SELECT * //query was much more specific...
        FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "post AS post
        JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "thread AS thread ON (thread.threadid = post.threadid)
        JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "subscribethread AS subscribethread ON (subscribethread.threadid = thread.threadid AND subscribethread.userid = " . $this->registry->userinfo[userid] . ")
        JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "threadread AS threadread ON (threadread.threadid = thread.threadid AND threadread.userid = " . $this->registry->userinfo[userid] . ")
        JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "user AS user ON (user.userid = post.userid)

    WHERE 1 = 1
        AND post.threadid = subscribethread.threadid
        AND post.dateline > threadread.readtime
        AND subscribethread.userid = " . $this->registry->userinfo[userid] . "
    
    ORDER BY post.dateline DESC
");
            
$postcount = 0;
            
while ($post = $this->registry->db->fetch_array($posts))
{
    $post['title'] = fetch_trimmed_title($post['title'], $this->config['newposts_titlemaxchars']);

    $post['url'] = fetch_seo_url('thread', $post, array('p' => $post['postid'])) . '#post' . $post['postid'];
    $post['newposturl'] = fetch_seo_url('thread', $post, array('goto' => 'newpost')) . '#post' . $post['postid'];

    $post['date'] = vbdate($this->registry->options['dateformat'], $post['dateline'], true);
    $post['time'] = vbdate($this->registry->options['timeformat'], $post['dateline']);

    $post['message'] = $this->get_summary($post['message'], $this->config['newposts_messagemaxchars']);

    // user info
    $linkinfo = array('postuserid' => $post['userid'], 'postusername' => $post['username']); 
    $post['memberurl'] = fetch_seo_url('member', $linkinfo, null, 'postuserid', 'postusername');
                
    $this->fetch_avatarinfo($post);
                
    $postarray[$post['postid']] = $post;
                
    $postcount++;
}
            
$message = "";
            
if ($postcount != 0) {
    $message .= "<br />Note: updates occur every five minutes.";
} else {
if ($this->registry->userinfo[userid] == 0)
    {
        $message .= "This feature is only available for logged in members.";
    } else {
        $message .= "There are currently no posts to display.";
    }
}
            
    $templater = vB_Template::create('block_nfposts');
        $templater->register('blockinfo', $this->blockinfo);
        $templater->register('posts', $postarray);
        $templater->register('message', $message);
    return $templater->render(); 


<vb:each from="posts" key="postid" value="post">
	<li class="avatarcontent floatcontainer">
		<a class="smallavatar">
		<vb:if condition="$post['showavatar']">
			<img width="30" title="" src="{vb:raw post.avatarurl}" alt=""/>
		<vb:else />
			<img width="30" title="" src="{vb:stylevar imgdir_misc}/unknown.gif" alt=""/>
		</vb:if>
		</a>
		<div class="smallavatartext">
		<p><a href="{vb:raw post.url}" class="title">{vb:raw post.title}</a></p>
		<p>{vb:raw post.message}</p>
		<div class="meta">
			by <a href="{vb:raw post.memberurl}">{vb:var post.username}</a> at <span class="time">{vb:raw post.time}</span> {vb:raw post.date}
		</div>
		</div>
	</li>
</vb:each>

So as you can see, my query in the PHP returns data into an array which I then pass as a registered variable into the template and use the vB built-in template call to iterate through the results (and accessing specific known named variables inside them - ex. {vb:raw post.title}).

Have you considered this sort of approach? I'm happy to give you a better look at my code and how I implemented it if you PM me.