Ok, quindi penso che il problema sia come imposti i tuoi ID .tab-pane. In questo momento non c'è ma nessun "eco", quindi non viene emesso nulla lì.
Ho messo insieme una demo funzionante, ho cambiato alcune parti del tuo codice, ma cose molto minori che ho provato a commentare:
<!-- START OF YOUR CODE -->
<ul class="nav nav-tabs" id="lb-tabs">
<?php
// I just made an array with some data, since I don't have your data source
$sqlCat = array(
array('tab_title'=>'Home'),
array('tab_title'=>'Profile'),
array('tab_title'=>'Messages'),
array('tab_title'=>'Settings')
);
//set the current tab to be the first one in the list.... or whatever one you specify
$current_tab = $sqlCat[0]['tab_title'];
?>
<?php
foreach ($sqlCat as $row):
//set the class to "active" for the active tab.
$tab_class = ($row['tab_title']==$current_tab) ? 'active' : '' ;
echo '<li class="'.$tab_class.'"><a href="#' . urlencode($row['tab_title']) . '" data-toggle="tab">' .
$row['tab_title'] . ' </a></li>';
endforeach;
?>
</ul><!-- /nav-tabs -->
<div class="tab-content">
<?php foreach ($sqlCat as $row2):
$tab = $row2['tab_title'];
//set the class to "active" for the active content.
$content_class = ($tab==$current_tab) ? 'active' : '' ;
?>
<div class="tab-pane <?php echo $content_class;?>" id="<?php echo $tab; //-- this right here is from yoru code, but there was no "echo" ?>">
<div class="links">
<ul class="col">
<?php
// Again, I just made an array with some data, since I don't have your data source
$items = array(
array('title'=>'Home','tab_link'=>'http://home.com'),
array('title'=>'Profile','tab_link'=>'http://profile.com'),
array('title'=>'Messages','tab_link'=>'http://messages.com'),
array('title'=>'Settings','tab_link'=>'http://settings.com'),
array('title'=>'Profile','tab_link'=>'http://profile2.com'),
array('title'=>'Profile','tab_link'=>'http://profile3.com'),
);
// you have a while loop here, my array doesn't have a "fetch" method, so I use a foreach loop here
foreach($items as $item) {
//output the links with the title that matches this content's tab.
if($item['title'] == $tab){
echo '<li>' . $item['title'] . ' - '. $item['tab_link'] .'</li>';
}
}
?>
</ul>
</div>
</div><!-- /tab-pane -->
<?php endforeach; ?>
</div><!-- /tab-content -->
<!-- END OF YOUR CODE -->
