# Lost ability to create new topics

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/lost-ability-to-create-new-topics/240661>\
**Category:** Bug\
**Created:** [October 2, 2022, 6:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/lost-ability-to-create-new-topics/240661 "2022-10-02T18:56:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![cwhatley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/cwhatley/32/273851_2.png) [@cwhatley](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cwhatley)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 6:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/lost-ability-to-create-new-topics/240661/1 "2022-10-02T18:56:42Z")

</div>

I self-host using docker and update from the tests-passed branch.

Updated to the following commit - [ff42bef1b6](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commits/ff42bef1b69f9e274745c42aef6318691f228b5d) - which includes the following PR:

[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/18383](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/18383)

After installing, users are unable to bring up the new topic composer either by clicking “+ New Topic” or visiting /new-topic directly.

Javascript error on console:

` TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'category.topic_template')`

I suspected that the code in the PR might be at issue and went into the rails console and executed the following to set the general category is to one of our existing categories:

` SiteSetting.general_category_id=5`

This fixed the issue. The prior value was -1.

I believe that using a default value of `nil` for `general_cateogory_id` would fix this issue.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/lost-ability-to-create-new-topics/240661)._