# Joining a group doesn’t take effect (enabling category access) unless the browser is hard-refreshed

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/joining-a-group-doesn-t-take-effect-enabling-category-access-unless-the-browser-is-hard-refreshed/242586
**Category:** Bug
**Tags:** groups, sidebar
**Created:** [October 21, 2022, 12:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/joining-a-group-doesn-t-take-effect-enabling-category-access-unless-the-browser-is-hard-refreshed/242586 "2022-10-21T12:10:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![ChrisBeach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/chrisbeach/32/214628_2.png) [@ChrisBeach](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ChrisBeach)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2022, 12:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/joining-a-group-doesn-t-take-effect-enabling-category-access-unless-the-browser-is-hard-refreshed/242586/1 "2022-10-21T12:10:15Z")

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Following up on the bug [Joining a group doesn't take effect unless the browser is hard-refreshed](https://meta.discourse.org/t/joining-a-group-doesnt-take-effect-unless-the-browser-is-hard-refreshed/57357) - it seems there are a couple of important category lists that don’t get updated when a user joins a group that enables access to a category.

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.

# Before hard refresh:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/8/4/e/84e018864de6232cb192e334f47f9fd47623cb41.png)

# After hard refresh:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/f/0/e/f0e28965bef667b17c6ce241bad8663f970899e1.png)

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### Author: ![pfaffman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pfaffman/32/120154_2.png) [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2022, 1:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/joining-a-group-doesn-t-take-effect-enabling-category-access-unless-the-browser-is-hard-refreshed/242586/2 "2022-10-21T13:57:24Z")

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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.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![ChrisBeach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/chrisbeach/32/214628_2.png) [@ChrisBeach](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ChrisBeach)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/joining-a-group-doesn-t-take-effect-enabling-category-access-unless-the-browser-is-hard-refreshed/242586/3 "2022-10-21T15:19:07Z")

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Having to hard-reload the forum is problematic for two reasons:

- UX - Users don’t know they’re required to hard reload. They join a group, expecting the change to category access to happen, and it doesn’t
- Non-technical users, especially on mobile, might not even know _how_ to reload the page

A while ago, @tgxworld [partially fixed](https://meta.discourse.org/t/joining-a-group-doesnt-take-effect-unless-the-browser-is-hard-refreshed/57357/15) the category refresh issues around joining groups. Perhaps similar could be done here?