Incorrect pages connected to navigation in new theme

Technical Q&A
1

We currently have a live site (Debut theme). We’ve been working on a new site version with a new theme. When I preview or publish the new theme, the wrong/old pages appear when clicking the navigation. New homepage is correct. When in ‘customize’ I notice many of the pages (someone else created) show ‘assigned to 0 pages’ and that must be the issue. But I’m not sure what the correct next steps are to fix it after a lot of searching. Thanks for your tips!

2

Hey! @SBCT ,

It sounds like the issue is due to the new theme’s navigation links still pointing to old or unassigned pages. In the Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Navigation and check each menu item to ensure it’s linked to the correct version of the page (especially if you’ve rebuilt or renamed them). Also, go to Online Store > Pages and ensure each page is properly created and published. If some custom templates show “assigned to 0 pages,” you’ll need to edit the relevant page and assign the correct template from the dropdown on the page editor. Once all pages are correctly linked and assigned, preview the new theme again to confirm everything works.

1 Like
3

Hello @SBCT !

So sorry to hear you’ve been dealing with such a tough issue!

What’s Happening

When switching to a new theme, Shopify doesn’t automatically link existing pages to the correct page templates in the new theme.

So even though your navigation menu might still point to the correct page URLs (e.g. /about, /contact), the template associated with those pages could be missing, mismatched, or incorrectly assigned.

How to Fix It

Here’s how to link the right templates to your pages:

1. Go to Online Store > Pages- In your Shopify admin, click Online Store → Pages.

  • Open each page that is not showing correctly (like About, Contact, etc.).

2. Check the Theme Template Setting- On the right sidebar of the page editor, you’ll see a dropdown labeled “Theme template”.

  • Make sure it’s set to a valid template from your new theme — like page, page.about, or whatever the new theme provides.

  • If it says “default” or something non-existent (from an old theme), it might show a blank or incorrect page.

3. Save the page- After selecting the correct template, hit Save.

4. Check Navigation Links

Go to Online Store → Navigation:

  • Make sure the menu items are linking to the correct Pages, not to outdated or manually typed URLs (like /page1).

  • Re-select them from the list of Pages if needed.

Optional: Create New Page Templates (If Needed)

If your new theme has no page templates, you can create new ones manually:

  • Go to Online Store → Themes → Edit Code

  • Under templates/, create a new file like page.about.json or page.custom.liquid

  • Assign those templates to the appropriate Pages via the dropdown in Step 2.

Result

Once you assign the correct templates to each page, previewing or publishing your new theme will show the right page content when clicking navigation links.

If this reply was useful to you, we would really appreciate it if you gave us a LIKE and mark the issue as SOLVED!

1 Like