Why aren't the main menu links working?

Topic summary

A Shopify store owner encountered an issue where main menu items with dropdowns weren’t functioning as clickable links, though the dropdown items themselves worked correctly.

Solution Provided:
Multiple users suggested editing the theme code (specifically header.liquid or header-dropdown-menu.liquid files). The primary fix involved:

  • Wrapping a <span> element within the <summary> tag with an <a> tag to make top-level menu items clickable
  • Adding proper link markup with {{ link.title | escape }}

Secondary Issue:
After implementing the fix, the menu item colors changed unexpectedly. Users wanted black text but the solution altered the styling.

Resolution:
The original poster confirmed the solution worked and later resolved the color issue, sharing the fix in other posts. One commenter also noted an additional problem: menus closing prematurely on desktop due to border gaps causing hover state loss between top-level items and dropdowns.

Code snippets and screenshots were shared throughout to guide the implementation.

Summarized with AI on November 4. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.

Click my name to see my other posts. I got a fix to this in the last few days