After a little break from Magento, I recently undertook a project using Magento eCommerce and was presented with the issue of the category navigation menu not showing. After hours of wrecking my brain on how to get the navigation to show I finally remembered it was the simplest of things. Check out how to show the navigation below.
1. Make sure your Categories are a Sub-Category of the Default (Root) Category.
If you have any problems, leave a comment below and I will try my best to help.
Jul 10, 2010New to Magento. After hours of testing and googling, found this great little tip! You did something good Paul. If you do consulting work, plz let me know.
Aug 6, 2010this was driving me nuts. thanks!
Aug 25, 2010I’ve inadvertantly deleted my root category, and now I don’t even have the button to add a root category. Any suggestions?
Aug 26, 2010Hi Paul,
You may need to clear the cache of your magento site. Its always a good idea to turn the Cache off when developing.
If the above is your solution then do the following…
Create a new root category. Move all your other categories into it.
Then assign it to your Store in System > Manage Stores, and you will have a functional menu.
Hope this helps.
Paul
May 26, 2011Thanks a lot!! I was starting to think that something was wrong with my Magento installation… Whew, I’l glad I found this tip 
Jun 15, 2011thanks..
I was creating them as separate root categories and was not able to get them in navigation..
Aug 28, 2011nice idea sir i followed it really very important for me
Dec 18, 2011Easy fix, thanks!
6:20 pm
It didn’t work for me. I have a custom 3-column layout, the left nav is set in the catalog layout, however, it doesn’t show.