Menu not updating

[HelenaStarenby]

Hi, what is wrong with the menus in SharePoint? The changes only show on the computer I am using for editing the menu. This is the case for both "website menus" as well as hub site menus. It has been days since I made the updates and the client has deleted all cookies etc. I have even tried looking at the menu in the SharePoint-app on my iPhone, but I see the same as the client, ie the old version. Any ideas?

[#2]

That setting is not available for modern communications sites as that setting is for old classic publishing navigation. Is this really verified solution for modern sites with hub navigation?

[#3]

@Irene_Lappalainen225 

Ok, I really don't know any other method. I use the classic mode for my startpage due to some compatiability issues, but at the bottom of the left navigation menu (on page with modern type) there is a "Edit" button that gets you to the same settings-page where the "Update" button is. 

Note that this is just from my own experience and how it looks for me. I am in no way an expert on Sharepoint, on the contrary, I'm very much a novice that just trial-and-errored my way to find this.

[#4]

You may open the Navigation page in Modern comms site by appending it to the url - _layouts/15/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx

[#5]

I am aware of that _layout page, but as stated that setting in the _layouts/15/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx is for structural navigation which is old classic publishing navigation. Actually next to that setting you can find microsofts "more information" link which will lead you to article that states "Structural navigation is an out-of-the-box solution for SharePoint sites with publishing enabled". You really should not be using that old navigation anymore and should not enable that and that is reason why we cant access that _layout page from site settings anymore. I really doubt that setting will fix modern hub site cache problem.

Instead I will try out to change the hub site navigation layout from megameny to css and check if that does the trick. I cannot advice my customers to use that but in some really bad situations that might be something we can do.

[#6]

Worked great. Thank you!

[#7]

We are experiencing the same issue in our tenant. We have no customizations, strictly out-of-the-box implementation of modern SharePoint Online. When looking at developer tools in Edge, there are two JavaScript errors that prevent us from updating an existing navigation link. I was able to create a new link, and delete the prior link as a workaround, but MSFT has introduced a JavaScript error that is preventing this from working. I have submitted a ticket with screen shots that show the JavaScipt errors.

[#8]

Just started working again for us, the JavaScript errors have disappeared and we are able to edit navigation links again in the mega menu.

[#9]

In SharePoint Online, by default the Navigation is not present. We may have to enable publishing feature for that.

[#10]

YEARS later and this is STILL an issue. As admin I could see the changes but not other users. Refreshing the cache as suggested above did nothing. Suggesting all 10000 users clear their cookies is not practical and shouldn't be necessary.

I inspected the page in an incognito window using a read only test id, and don't see the js errors mentioned above. But when I closed that window and opened a new one, the changes showed up for the test user. But still not for others.

How on earth does Msft allow these bugs to persist without doing anything? Oh, forgot - they don't care. 

[#11]

I've had the same issue since the modern experience started, and it's still happening today. It's on all our client tenants, all browsers and is very annoying. We spend our lives clearing the cache and expecting hundreds and thousands of users to do the same is just not feasible. The basics are not being addressed by Microsoft, its extremely frustrating.

[#12]

Incorrect. This is the site navigation settings which controls much more than the structural navigation provider, here you can select any navigation provider, like managed metadata provider and configure navigation settings wider than just a single provider. It is where site navigation settings are configured. Just because it is not yet "modernised" does not mean it is a classic only feature. Keep in mind what Microsoft calls "modern" has little to do with what is modern, and more than often because it costs money.

[#13]

@ChrisAru When I use this, the "Refreshing" button just stays saying "Refreshing". Even after 10 minutes it never changed. I'm using Edge - Version 110.0.1587.46 (Official build) (64-bit). Not sure how to fix this so I can do as you suggested and just press this button when I want to refresh the "Structural Navigation: Refresh Cache". Do you have any suggestions as to why the "Refreshing" button won't finish it's cycle and refresh the navigation? The only thing that works for me is to clear all cache and cookies in the browser. Any thoughts???

[#14]

@Gary_Gordon I believe after a 24 hr crawl (wait), you should be able to go back in to the /_layouts/15/areanavigationsettings.aspx and it will no longer say "Refreshing"?

[#15]

@NotSoBland That's what I would have thought. But that's not what happened. It's still not working. :(

[#16]

It would be professional if someone from @Pernille-Eskebo could give us the reason why they don't fix the issue? Hard to believe they never saw this issue unless they are not using SharePoint internally....

[#17]

same issue here. can't believe all these folks have the same issue and its not addressed. Starting a migration project from onprem to online and not being able to edit the global navigation is a disaster. No shot am I going to ask the entire org to clear their cookies.
Has anyone found a workaround for communication sites?

[#18]

how is this still a thing? i've been having this problem now for weeks, my only solution is to create new menu items and delete the old ones

[#19]

So, after weeks of trying different approaches, I was finally able to achieve this with some custom piece of code.

The problem here is that SharePoint Online stores the Hub navigation in browser cache. A database called ODSP_DB is holding the navigation nodes. Users cannot see the navigation updates unless they clear browser cache (which eventually refreshes the database) or logout and login to the system.

To overcome this issue, you have to clean the DB with custom JS Code and unregister a service worker from the browser, which actually forces the browser to rebuild the ODSP_DB and the navigation nodes.

I have placed the sample code on my blog. May be it will help someone until a proper way is announced by Microsoft.

http://fixingsharepoint.blogspot.com/2022/11/sharepoint-online-hub-navigation-not.html

[#20]

Thanks - very interesting! I am still surprised that the browser's cache cannot detect that the menu has been updated on the server side and then update itself accordingly. I thought that was how browser caches were supposed to work. Unfortunately deploying an SPFX solution and asking our users to click on something to keep their menu updated is not a practical solution for us.

[#21]

@ChrisAru I'm admin of my site but I don't see the Navigation option under Look and Feel. Any idea how to Refresh Cache in the current setup?