Joining a group doesn’t take effect (enabling category access) unless the browser is hard-refreshed. ChrisBeach reports that category lists, such as the sidebar and topic editor, don’t update when a user joins a group that enables access to a category. A browser refresh is required to see the updated list of categories.
ChrisBeach explains that users may not know they need to hard reload, creating a user experience (UX) issue, especially for non-technical users on mobile who may not know how to reload the page. pfaffman confirms that users have access to the category, but it’s not reflected in their browser until they hard-reload. ChrisBeach suggests building on a partial fix by tgxworld to resolve the category refresh issues around joining groups.
In the below example, the sidebar and category list on the topic editor didn’t contain the “Politics” category despite the user joining a group that enabled access to this category. A browser refresh was required to see the updated list of categories.
You have access to that category (you could type it in your browser and go there), but it’s not reflected in your browser because that list of categories was loaded before you had access to the group. You just have to hard-reload when you join a group.