Sidebar menu items do not appear and category page unpopulated

Help
1

Hi Jekyll community,

I’m struggling with my Minimal Mistakes Starter GitHub Pages site. The custom category page (/categories/absurd/) shows only the “Absurd” heading, no posts, despite a post tagged categories: Absurd. The post appears in the default “Categories” menu, but the “Absurd” menu item (defined in _config.yml’s main:) is missing from the sidebar. Actions builds are green, and caching is ruled out (clean browser).

Setup:

Issues:

  1. / categories / absurd / is empty (no posts, just “Absurd” heading).
  2. “Absurd” menu item (from _config.yml’s main:) doesn’t appear in sidebar.
  • Sidebar shows “Lady Saedie Blog,” author links.
  • Post appears in default “Categories” menu, indicating categories: Absurd is recognized.
  • Green Actions builds, no caching issues.

Tried:

  • Fixed post YAML, simplified _config.yml, forced rebuilds, verified categories/absurd.md.
  • Tested with clean browser, checked Actions logs (no errors).

Questions:

  • Why aren’t posts appearing on /categories/absurd/? Is it a Jekyll indexing or post processing issue?
  • Why is the main: menu item not rendering in the sidebar?
  • Any Minimal Mistakes starter quirks or GitHub Pages fixes?

Thanks for any help!
Philip

2

This problem has been solved by switching to Chirpy Starter which has more of the features I require. I tried to delete this post - to not waste anyone’s time - but I wouldn’t let me.