# Discourse Ad settings breaks viewing categories

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-ad-settings-breaks-viewing-categories/258563>\
**Category:** Bug\
**Tags:** advertising\
**Created:** [March 16, 2023, 3:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-ad-settings-breaks-viewing-categories/258563 "2023-03-16T03:58:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![MarcP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/marcp/32/160184_2.png) [@MarcP](https://meta.discourse.org/u/MarcP)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2023, 3:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-ad-settings-breaks-viewing-categories/258563/1 "2023-03-16T03:58:49Z")

</div>

It took me a while to trace down this bug, it’s a little hard to repro but:

Requirement: there are ads displayed on `Topic list top ads`, in my case simple HTML text ads.

Issue: category browsing (at least from the sidebar) breaks after a few clicks. All Categories shows a random category, and visiting category A might show the same topic list

Repro:

1. Click category A
2. Click category B
3. Click “All Categories”
4. Click category C, C has subcategories, set to “none” instead of “all” subcategories
5. Click “All Categories”
6. Repeat
7. Issue described above should appear by now, otherwise repeat.

Repro is basically some random browsing between “categories” and “all categories” and other sequences might give the same issue as result. 2-3 rotations should definitely result in repro.

When the `Topic list top ads` ads are disabled, zapping between categories and “categories” and “all categories” works as expected.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-ad-settings-breaks-viewing-categories/258563)._