Plugin does not work in vbCMS

[marrr]

I know that global_start is depreciated but it seems to be the only hook that works for the rest of the site. When I tried global_bootstrap_init_complete or any other global_bootstrap_* hook I get the error:

PHP Code:

Fatal error: Call to a member function assign() on a non-object 


in my functions.php which refers to the assign function in smarty for setting variables to be used in the templates that I am loading via the plugin. It is as if the smarty class isn't loaded or recognized even though it is the first include in the plugin...