@SallyCJ Yeah right now I do have a for loop after the call going through the array to redefine all the values, but it seems so pointless for someone whose used to working with PDO in PHP as this is something that just works.

@vancoder don't think so. I disabled most of the plug-ins that I thought might have something to do with it, but no luck. Is there any keyword/phrase I can search for in the theme and plug-ins folders that would be match a term update hook?

Thanks, that query does return all 19 categories. I may look into using Query Monitor if no other solution presents itself.

Yes I did have a real page set up, though once I set it as my home page, a lot of things broke. I think the only way to get it to work properly will be to do an htaccess trick... to make the internal page show as the front. Though I don't have that working yet.