[BirdOPrey5]

OK Thanks... the first bit of code was a big help- definitely needed to use: cache_ordered_forums(1); for it to work... now I have data in the $forum variable... but still not working. I've narrowed it down to the $lastpostinfo - it's always an empty array.

Current code: (note I had to change the name of $forumid and $forum because the names were interfering with existing code and the forum wouldn't display properly until I changed them so I added an 'x' to the end of each:

include('includes/functions_forumlist.php'); 
global $vbulletin, $lastpostarray;
// call fetch_last_post_array() first to get last post info for forums
if (!is_array($lastpostarray))
{
	fetch_last_post_array(-1);
}

$lastpostinfo = (empty($lastpostarray[4]) ? array() : $vbulletin->forumcache["$lastpostarray[4]"]);

$forumidx = 4;

cache_ordered_forums(1);  
$forumx = $vbulletin->forumcache["$forumidx"];

$sico = fetch_forum_lightbulb($forumidx, $lastpostinfo, $forumx);
eval('$template_hook[navbar_buttons_left] .= "' ."<td>" .$sico.  $forumx['forumid']. "-" . $forumx['forumread'] . $lastpostinfo['lastpost'] ."</td>" . '";');

The output of this is: old4-1287669138
$lastpostinfo['lastpost'] is empty.