HUB Site Top navigation suddenly disappeared

[Phillipe Nelson]

I created a HUB site early last week.  It took the rest of the week for the global TOP link show up and even then, I was not able to add any additional links.  Only the default "home" link was available.  Now today, I suddenly have a different screen to manage navigation but any change I make fails with "permission denied".  But I realized something else was wrong, the top navigation links at the top of the home page to the site, under the page titile, is now gone.  This used to show the same items as the left nav column but horizontally.  The left nav does show on subpages but not the home page.   Just to add to my frustration, if I add a links in the

"Structural Navigation: Editing and Sorting"  , the link works even though I get the permissions error.  Anyone else having problems?

[#2]

Also works for me Melissa!

Thank you for sharing this approach.

[#3]

Activating and Deactivating  site collection publishing infrastructure on team site collection which is linked to HUB site resolved my issue. You need to use different browser and update the top navigation link on HUB site using settings.aspx. It is easy to crack this issue using all the information provided by each contributor + combine them and implement.

Thank you to all for sharing... :)

[#4]

@Melissa Torres , Hi.

I know it is an old issue... My new client has similar issue. I can't edit global navigation on the communication hub site, that was created 2 days ago. If I try to edit global navigation it takes me o the Navigation Setting page (https://tenantname.sharepoint.com/sites/intranet/_layouts/15/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx).

Any workarounds offered in this post (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint/HUB-Site-Top-navigation-suddenly-disappeared/m-p/1...) do not work.

I appreciate any advise. Thank you.

[#5]

@Alex Zakhodin , can you confirm a few things, your hub is a communication site so publishing features are not enabled? Also if you try to edit from the document library or site contents pages does that work? Thanks for your patience, this will help me track down the issue as I'm not able to reproduce from my side. 

[#6]

@Melissa Torres  I tried different things, and I think I'm OK now. 

I suspect my issue started when I registered my hub site using SPO Admin, and not PowerShell. The registration through the SPO admin activated unnecessary features on the site collection. When I tried to disable publishing infrastructure I was getting an error. 

I was able to resolve my issue by:

1. Unregistering my hub site using PowerShell

2. Registering it again using PowerShell (it still had non-modern navigation)

3. Removing infrastructure publishing feature from site collection

It took a little bit of time but after these steps eventually new modern navigation appears.

Thank you for your response and desire to help!

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@Melissa Torres wrote:

@Alex Zakhodin , can you confirm a few things, your hub is a communication site so publishing features are not enabled? Also if you try to edit from the document library or site contents pages does that work? Thanks for your patience, this will help me track down the issue as I'm not able to reproduce from my side. 

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[#7]

@Melissa Torres 

I am having this issue too.  Each time I try and do it manually by adding the link, I am taken to navigation settings...

[#8]

I am having the same issue, after I switched my root with a hub communication site.
Changing browser doesn’t help and global admin also cannot see edit button on global navigation. I am an ootb administrator so Powershell is not an option. I don’t know what to do.

[#9]

I am experiencing the exact same thing after changing the root level into a HubSite-enabled Communication Site, the «edit» option on the global navigation bar is gone missing. I have verified that all sites are associated with the affected HubSite. Please advise.

[#10]

@freddiech @Juipt @GrouchoM 

Want to make sure I understand the exact repro, so I have a few questions:

1. Seems like your swapping your root site with a different comm site. Is the comm site a hub before the swap or afterwards?

2. How was the comm site you're swapping to the root created?

3. At the root previously was there another comm site or a classic team site?

These details will help me track down the issue. Thanks so much for reporting this. 

[#11]

@Melissa Torres 

- Thank you for your quick response.

1. Based of published documentation from Microsoft found here , I first unregistered the Comm Site as a Hub Site, replaced the root site (via PowerShell), and then re-registered the site as a Hub Site.

2. It was created in the SharePoint Admin Center -> Sites -> Active Sites -> "+ Create" -> Comm Site.

3. The previous root was a classic Team site.

[#12]

Hi Melissa,
Thank you for responding! My answers are pretty similar to @freddiech except for the PowerShell part and site creation:
1. Based on "Modernize Root Site documentation, I also first unregistered the Comm Site as a Hub Site, replaced the root site (via Sharepoint admin center), and then re-registered the site as a Hub Site.

2. It was created in the SharePoint App Home Panel > "+ Create" -> Comm Site.

3. The previous root was a classic Team site.

[#13]

@Melissa Torres @Juipt @freddiech 

It's not explicit in this thread but I am gathering that the auto-enabled top nav across the hub sites is geared to occur with specific configurations ..is that correct?  And please lmk if that is clearly laid out somewhere...or is this a glitch we are working through??  What I read portrays the top nav as common to all hub associated collections...and yet it's not there.  Is that only true to hubs that are also the root site?

I see some info dealing with this here https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/sharepoint-ama/i-need-an-enterprise-landing-page/m-p/175135#M... but not definitive replies...

Now, I am able to manually embed a link in the top nav of my team-hub (without O365 groups) to associated sites, however navigation is not appearing out of the box .

[#14]

Hi, How do you edit the hub nav from the site content's? Im also experiencing the same issue

[#15]

Is there a way to auto populate the Child sites connected to the hub in the hub navigation menu?

@Melissa Torres 

[#16]

@Phillipe Nelson 

I am also experiencing similar.  The top navigation used to allow me to add links and labels in the user interface.  This allowed me to make sub links under the Labels.  Now it has a drop down, but no way of adding or changing links below it.  When I select Edit, it takes me to the Navigation Settings page.  I followed the suggestion to use Powershell to un-register, and re-register the site and changed the Publishing setting in Settings.  Now when I select Edit to add a Link, I get the 404 page not found error.  I'm going to give it an hour, then try again.  I hope this works.