Topics from some categories do not appear on /latest

The procedure for reordering categories as they appear on the landing page for logged in users, as set out in the documentation here, seems not to be working.

I am unsure whether this is likely due to a recent beta update, or some related setting I recently and unwittingly played with, but would much appreciate any suggustion to get category display ordering priorities working again.

Per the posted procedure, I have enabled fixed category positions and fixed category positions on create and have assigned numeric priorities such that my most preferred category appears above my less preferred category in the reorder categories dialog, and I have clicked the save button.

Clearing the browser cache, closing and reopening my browser, logging back in (as administrator), and checking the category order showing in the reorder categories dialog shows the settings were indeed saved - however still posts from the less preferred category always display first, completely filling the landing page display by default when the site is first opened by a logged in user - even though it has much less recent posts than the preferred category, and much less activity generally.

As a result, anyone visiting the site/checking in would conclude at a glance that nothing much has happened there for a long time - unless they happen to be one of the very few who are up to speed with the way posts are organized by Discourse into categories, and that they would first need to click on a different category heading in the left sidebar, in order to see anything recent that is relevant to them.

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The landing page (/latest) for logged-in users always shows topics sorted by recent activity, not by category order or priority. If you want your preferred categories to appear first, you can switch the default landing page to something like /categories instead of /latest. That way, users will see your prioritized category order on the homepage, and when they click into a category, its topics and posts will be shown accordingly.

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… except for me that doesn’t seem to be happening.

Only old posts from the least important category are appearing on the first page - the posts in the most important /higher priority category are newer, but are nevertheless being hidden by default

This was not the case a couple of weeks ago.

I want to ensure a curated experience for logged in users who are not invested enough to learn the ins & outs of Discourse navigation, but just want to see the most recent posts, in the most relevant category, right there when they first click on the site link.

By any chance is your preferred category added under default categories muted in the site settings? If it’s muted, its posts won’t appear on /latest even when they’re newer. Could you please check and confirm?

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thanks @jahan_gagan .

By way of explaining my setup, in case this helps:

The two categories in question are called ‘Architects Forum, and ‘Open Forum’, both of which are actually subcategories, each sitting within its own corresponding master category

‘Architects Forum is a subcategory of ‘PRIVATE’ master category, and ‘Open Forum’ is a subcategory of the ‘PUBLIC’ master category.

The idea is in future to add further subcategories within these master categories, as the need arises

The PUBLIC vs PRIVATE master categories were used as a way to align front facing content discussed with the login access level.
As you can see above, I have other subcategories and master categories in place, but these have little to no activity.

Those with forum accounts can see and post to subcategories within the ‘PRIVATE’ master category (though currently only one subcategory is in active use) - it is expected that these subcategories may sometimes contain somewhat sensitive discussion, not intended for wider distribution.

Meanwhile everyone, with or without an account, can see and post to subcategories within the ‘PUBLIC’ master category.

By far the most activity currently occurs within the ‘PRIVATE > Architects Forum’ subcategory, and it is thus the latest posts in this subcategory that I want to appear for logged in users by default.

Instead, no matter what I do, the landing page now shows old posts in the ‘PUBLIC > Open Forum’ category.

There is not supposed to be anything posted directly to the master categories themselves, and to reduce the scope for this (as this kept happening), both master categories were set to ‘muted’, so the option to post to them directly was hidden.

As a test, I have tried clearing that default_categories_muted setting, so that nothing is muted, but this seems to make no difference to what shows up on the landing page by default - when opening the site, even after hitting <Ctrl+F5> in browser - the site now aways defaults to ‘PUBLIC > Open Forum’ category posts only

How are you testing this? Are you impersonating another user? Did you make sure that user has access to the private category? It sounds a silly question, but could be an oversight?

I got another logged in user to send me a screenshot

EDIT I also just made a test account and signed in with that - again no change

Not working for me.

I have enabled fixed category positions and fixed category positions on create and have assigned numeric priorities such that my most preferred category appears above my less preferred category in the reorder categories dialog, and have clicked the save button.

Closing and reopening my browser, clearing the browser cache, logging back in as administrator and checking the category order showing in the reorder categories dialog shows the settings were saved - however still the less preferred category always displays first by default when the site is first opened - even though it has less recent posts than the preferred category.

Is there another setting somewhere that might be interfering with preferred category order?

Until a recent rebuild, this was not an issue, - though I had also played around with a few settings at the time (which I now don’t remember), so unclear whether this is a software or user defect.

Can you clarify where it displays first? On the /categories page? In the dropdown above the topic list? In the drop down in the composer? In all these places?

Hi @Moin

The wrong category of posts appears first, by default when the site first opens.

What is appearing first are the latest posts in my ‘Open Forum’ category, which is used quite infrequently.

What should be appearing first are the latest posts in my ‘Architects Forum’ category, which is used very much more frequently (noting that only logged- in users have access to ‘Architects Forum’ content)

Screenshot below, showing the posts in the category I don’t want appearing first by default:

The ‘Architects Forum’ category posts I want to appear first by default are what used to appear by default, until I messed something up - either by pulling and rebuilding my Discourse instance to the latest beta version, or by changing a setting somewhere and forgetting what it was.

So, it’s not about the order of categories as described in the guide above, but about which categories appear on the latest page?

Did you also check with a test user? Is it the same for them? Then we know for sure the category is not accidentally muted for you. You can also check your tracking preferences for that.

I assumed the set order of categories was the determinant for which category of posts would appear first on the landing page, by default. Sounds like this is not true, and that this is controlled elsewhere?

Yes, I checked with a fresh test user, and get the same result, with no tracking preferences set.

Which landing page? Does your screenshot not show /latest? How did you configure that?

Yes, my screenshot does show /latest but these are the latest in the wrong (seldom used) category

I didn’t knowingly configure that to happen - if I knew where/how it was configured (other than by the category order setting that I had assumed was relevent), my problem would likely be solved!

Sorry, I got distracted.

Any chance you enabled the Mute all categories by default site setting? Can you check your staff action logs for site setting changes that might be related?

Thanks @Moin, I just checked both.

Mute all categories by default is not enabled.

There are lots of staff actions logged over last 2 weeks , which I have pasted below in case it contains any clues. Clearly unrelated actions & actions with user-identifying information have been redacted.
Most of the reminder are down to me sporadically trying different settings to resolve the situation (I am the only staff member)

admin	change_site_setting	fixed_category_positions	2025-11-20 23:57:40 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	fixed_category_positions_on_create	2025-11-20 23:57:46 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	default_composer_category	2025-11-20 23:58:36 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	shared_drafts_category	2025-11-20 23:59:08 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	emoji_set	2025-11-28 01:07:35 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	edit_post_allowed_groups	2025-11-28 01:17:04 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	flag_post_allowed_groups	2025-11-28 01:17:23 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	profile_background_allowed_groups	2025-11-28 01:17:38 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	user_card_background_allowed_groups	2025-11-28 01:17:46 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	direct_message_enabled_groups	2025-11-28 01:18:35 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	chat_allowed_groups	2025-11-28 01:18:46 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	chat_message_flag_allowed_groups	2025-11-28 01:18:54 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	poll_create_allowed_groups	2025-11-28 01:19:00 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	styleguide_allowed_groups	2025-11-28 01:19:12 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	fixed_category_positions_on_create	2025-11-28 01:20:00 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	fixed_category_positions	2025-11-28 01:20:01 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	fixed_category_positions_on_create	2025-11-28 01:20:08 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	fixed_category_positions_on_create	2025-11-28 01:26:56 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	sort_categories_by_event_start_date_enabled	2025-11-28 01:27:56 UTC	


admin	change_site_setting	default_navigation_menu_categories	2025-12-01 04:09:36 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	default_navigation_menu_categories	2025-12-01 04:10:12 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	default_navigation_menu_categories	2025-12-01 04:10:19 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	default_sidebar_link_to_filtered_list	2025-12-01 04:10:47 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	fixed_category_positions	2025-12-01 04:15:18 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	patreon_creator_discourse_username	2025-12-01 04:16:26 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	sort_categories_by_event_start_date_enabled	2025-12-01 04:19:29 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	desktop_category_page_style	2025-12-01 04:22:03 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	position	2025-12-01 04:29:56 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	custom_fields[enable_topic_voting]	2025-12-01 04:29:56 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	fixed_category_positions_on_create	2025-12-01 04:38:00 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	name	2025-12-01 05:15:46 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	custom_fields[enable_topic_voting]	2025-12-01 05:15:46 UTC	

admin	change_category_settings	name	2025-12-01 05:20:02 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	slug	2025-12-01 05:20:02 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	custom_fields[enable_topic_voting]	2025-12-01 05:20:02 UTC	


admin	change_category_settings	position	2025-12-02 07:26:22 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	sort_order	2025-12-02 07:26:22 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	sort_ascending	2025-12-02 07:26:22 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	num_featured_topics	2025-12-02 07:26:22 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	read_only_banner	2025-12-02 07:26:22 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	custom_fields[enable_topic_voting]	2025-12-02 07:26:22 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	sort_ascending	2025-12-02 07:28:11 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	num_featured_topics	2025-12-02 07:28:11 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	default_view	2025-12-02 07:28:11 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	default_top_period	2025-12-02 07:28:11 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	search_priority	2025-12-02 07:28:11 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	custom_fields[enable_topic_voting]	2025-12-02 07:28:11 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	sort_ascending	2025-12-02 09:04:16 UTC	
admin	change_category_settings	custom_fields[enable_topic_voting]	2025-12-02 09:04:16 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	default_categories_muted	2025-12-02 09:09:15 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	default_categories_muted	2025-12-02 09:55:05 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	enable_offline_indicator	2025-12-02 09:56:56 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	default_watched_precedence_over_muted	2025-12-02 09:57:14 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	default_other_new_topic_duration_minutes	2025-12-02 09:57:35 UTC	
admin	change_site_setting	default_topics_automatic_unpin	2025-12-02 09:58:03 UTC	


Is there anything useful in that?

This is still the most suspicious one. I think muting a parent category can result in the subcategories being muted too. Are you sure no category is muted in your preferences?
If you filter latest for one of the subcategories that are missing on the unfiltered latest, which tracking state does the dropdown show?

I don’t think muting is the right way to enforce that. I’d try to use the category security settings for that. Only allowing reading on the parent category, but reading, replying, and creating in the subcategories should work to prevent replies to the parent. You might also want to enable default_subcategory_on_read_only_category. (I am not sure it matters that much now as the new topic button is no longer disabled on categories where you are not allowed to post.)

Don’t forget to use the option to change the preference for existing users when you remove the categories from the default muted setting.