I managed to get the topic to update by shutting down the socket and manually /topicrefresh quickly after, tho it took a few tries before the dbupdate socket reopened. My IRC channel (and forum) dont have very much traffic in fact thus far the activity bar hasn't gone above 'Very Idle'. I'll keep watching this thread to see if any updates happen, or if someone can explain to me why its not workin so well for me.
I am still a bit concerned about the connection to /forums/irconline.php?eventid=refresh which seems to coincide with the settings within the aliases installed by this hack (of which I have 4, begintime, ircrefresh, startcount, and topicrefresh). I'm pretty sure this is whats causing the problems... you dont have this problem on your own forum?
Still, this hack is better than the IRC hack I had installed on VB2. Thanks a lot for the efforts in this, and great hack

Installed!