$notifications_total variable not available?

[jawatkin]

Hi, I created a custom template and inserted the Notification/Login code into it.

The strange thing is that, if in the navbar (or any other) template, the: $notifications_total variable, does what it should. If I have 5 notifications, this number is 5 and the Notifications menu will show.

If in my custom template, it is empty or NULL... so if I have 1 PM and 4 Visitor Messages, with the <if condition="$show['notifications']"> conditional, it goes to the <else /> and just goes to say "Private Messages: Unread 1, Total 277." If I further test just outputting the $notifications_total variable, it is NULL/blank.

The plugin is hooked in at "parse_templates" with the following:
eval('$MEMBER_INFO = "' . fetch_template('MEMBER_INFO') . '";');

and I've also got a cached hook in "cache_templates":
$globaltemplates = array_merge($globaltemplates, array('MEMBER_INFO'));

Any ideas?