Hi John,

I think there could be 2 reasons for this:

1 - the rand() function is not as random as it should be (though honestly, I am surprised that it's as non-random as you are experiencing). You can use an alternative function that's supposed to be a lot better though: mt_rand(). So you can change your 1st line to this:

$r = mt_rand(1,13); // get a random number: 1-13 inclusive


2 - (more likely) I think you probably have the System Cache plugin activated. If you are caching entire pages with this plugin, then it's going to completely ignore any randomness, because the previous contents of the page are going to be used instead of this code being re-run. The System Cache is simply not smart enough to understand that modules may render themselves differently at different times, e.g. by randomness such as you are using, or even with things like a list of articles changing, in a mod_latest sort of module.

So, go to your Plugin Manager, and look for "System - Cache", and turn it off. Yes, there will be a performance hit, but that's a fact of life when you have dynamic content.

Hope that helps,
Stephen

ps. I'd be very interested to know if the rand()/mt_rand() thing was the problem. If so, I'll change the recipe in the Recipes section.

ok, that's good to know, thanks for reporting back.

Cheers,
Stephen