Confusion (or Error) with Categories

Horton

As I understand it: When I nest categories, users should not be able to pick the root category for a new thread and all posts go in to the child categories. I often see posts that are in fact assigned to the root category.

Do I misunderstand or is this an error? I can not personally replicate the error.

Example: if you look at BallOfSpray you will see that “Mostly Slalom” is a root category and you will also see posts assigned to “Mostly Slalom”.

shedoesitall

I have this problem with categories in root categories too, that I'd like to not have any posts in (but still show up as a root category in the list). Looking forward to reading an answer to this.

Lincoln

Do you have "Display root categories as headings" checked on the Categories page in the Dashboard? That is the toggle that effects the ability to do that. When checked, the root categories cannot be selected.

Horton

Yes I do and that is what is weird. I am have not corrected the issue specifically so you can go look and see it.

Lincoln

Hi Horton, I can see there are 3 discussions that have been started in that category. Have you changed your category settings at all in the last couple weeks? I'm not able to start a discussion in your root categories so I'd be keenly interested to learn how they accomplished that.

Horton

I have not touched those settings and like you I can not start a discussion in the root category. Yes that is weird. This started to happen when you did the last noticeable upgrade.

Lincoln

Next time you notice it, would you ask the user what steps they took to create the discussion and how they're doing it? If one of them could remember it would help a lot in tracking it down. I'll play with it a little more too.

Lincoln

@Horton Though I'm not sure how they're doing it, I have identified a bug in our category checking that should've redundantly prevented it from happening. I've filed a bug ticket to have it fixed. If we're unable to find the specific cause on your site, we'll still get the hole plugged eventually.