Adding & Moving Categories with Cache Flush Removes Categories at least from Admin/Site

[j3ff]

1.9.2.2 fully patched.

Hard subject title but tried my best to indicate the issue.

Really been struggling to get a decent number of categories in the site.

It was unbelievable to me that importing categories wasn't standard (and that other imports don't work well but that is a different thread!) like most other packages so I've spent a decent amount of time trying to find a working and uncomplicated method to import categories.

With past shopping carts I was confident in importing directly via SQL but the Magento database looks a mess to me and there is no easy straight forward import method I can see.

I tried this but it didn't work very well and hasn't been updated in a while.  Basically a flat file import but the parent/child portion didn't work well and had to hand move all the categories/subcategories.  I did that and then flushed the cache and things really got screwed up including many subcategories disappearing from the admin.  They appeared to be in the database but I couldn’t figure out was was wrong given the number of tables involved.

So I thought it must be the import script and resorted to hand entering and moving all the categories from within admin..

Flushed the cache and similar results.  It appeared that any moved category to any position as a subcategory (under root or otherwise) was subject to issues after the cache flush.

Given that I hand entered and moved from within admin. it has the appearance of a bug though I can't find any other threads with similar issues so I'm perplexed.

Anyone having similar issues or guidance as to what I'm doing incorrectly?  Any advice regarding importing welcome too.

UPDATE:
This appears to happen with reindexing as well.

I wiped and did a brief test with putting subcategories only under root.

Adding a single category under root works and sticks.

Adding a second category and then refreshing categories puts the 1st subcategory under this one.

So start with

1

  2

Then when adding 3 I get

1

  3

     2 (this is now subcategory under 3, should but under root #1)

I can move 2 back and it sticks but it happens again when new subcategories are added and nesting gets deeper the more categories I add before refreshing the manage categories.  Reindex produces similar nesting.

Wasting so many days on this basic function.

[Brent W Peterson]

Are you adding the categories in the admin or via SQL still? Your question is a little unclear.

[j3ff]

Sorry.  Via admin.

SQL import looks too dicey for me to attempt with all the related tables.  Linked import script was tried but now I'm working strictly in admin..

Thanks.

[j3ff]

When moving categories around in admin. it appears that the path is being appended by part of the original path.

So as an example a category (#16) that should be 1/2/5/16

becomes

1/2/6/5/16

when categories are moved in admin.

#6 in this instance is a parent category below #5

This is the simplest example I can provide but it looks like the appending gets deeper as you move things which makes them disappear in admin because the path is incorrect and doesn't follow the structure.

[j3ff]

Had to move on and do a combination of things to get the categories in the admin. 

After that it appears moving things around no longer has the effects I noted though I still think there is an issue here given my initial method of trying to add categories/move categories so thread is likely still worthwhile.

Thanks for reading.