samvaarv rows.total is a placeholder of multiTV, so you have to call multiTV inside BlogCards
chunks snippet to get that value. I tested the following and it works:
<a href="[+url+]" class="blog-listitem">
<div class="blog-listthumbnail"><img src="[+tv.page-thumb+]" alt="[+pagetitle+]" ></div>
<div class="blog-list__info">
<h3>[+pagetitle+]</h3>
<span ><i class="far fa-calendar-check"></i> [+date+]</span>
<span><i class="far fa-user"></i> By [+tv.author-name+] </span>
[[multiTV? &tvName='XXX' &docid='[+id+]' &display='all' &outerTpl='counter']]
<p>[[Truncate? &what=`[+content+]` &len=`200`]]</p>
</div>
</a>
where counter
is the following chunk:
<span><i class="far fa-comment-alt"></i>[+rows.total+] comments</span>
What happens here is that if there is at least one comment, then the multiTV snippet outputs the counter
chunk, which just shows the number of comments. If there are no comments, then the whole chunk is not displayed. Other option is to display 0 comments
when there are no comments, for this you want to move the span out of counter
chunk and play around with multiTV parameters so that the number 0 is displayed if the TV is empty.
Let me know if this helps.