Because hitcounter counts hits on an image or album page. It is meant for counting views on the page. There is no count for the index page, though. On 1.1.6 the page detection code had some problems which were fixed on 1.1.7, I guess you got lucky with your change.
EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood. You are not trying to set the counter, just view it. This should still work. Perhaps you did not get your code back in the right place after the upgrade.
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EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood. You are not trying to set the counter, just view it. This should still work. Perhaps you did not get your code back in the right place after the upgrade.
first,put the code '<?php hitcounter('album', false); ?>' in album.php
then put the code'<?php echo hitcounter('album',true,getAlbumID()); ?>' in index.php
the Parameter "true" means to show hitcounter,but do not count it.