[Badshah93]

Originally Posted by EquinoxWorld

Sorry about that. Tried that as well but still no luck I'm afraid. The sidemenu shows perfectly but just not that variables output. Would you think it may have to do with the execution order ? Maybe the template is being rendered before the variable is included in the template? I'm so frustrated right now. In any case thanks for your help guys, I really appreciate it. If anyone has any more ideas or anything info at ALL please let me know. Thanks.

Try This

Plugin Hook: parse_templates

ob_start(); 
  require_once('test.php'); 
  $php_include = ob_get_contents(); 
ob_end_clean();  

$templater = vB_Template::create('COTW_SIDEMENU'); 
$templater->register('php_include', $php_include); 
$cotw_sidemenu = $templater->render(); 
vB_Template::preRegister('COTW_SOTW',array('cotw_sidemenu' => $cotw_sidemenu));

To be fair, why you are including external file from outside. just write php code in plugins or make functions.