In SharePoint 2010 when you create a new Top Link Bar entry the Home tab will not highlight anymore

After adding page links to the Top Link Bar of team sites tab, the Home tab (the first one) was not getting highlighted anymore when selected. All other page links added to the Top Link Bar were being highlighted as expected. Some people came out with the idea of disabling the Wiki Feature to make Home highlights again. Even though it seems to bring the highlight back to the Home tab, it was disabling a very useful web feature. This is not a very efficient workaround in my humble opinion.

Since I had to work in this issue I was able to put together a workaround that resolves the problem without much effort. First, I will explain how to reproduce the problem, then I will show my solution. I am really curious to know how many people are experiencing the problem, so if it helped you, please add your comment.

These are the steps to reproduce the problem

 

1. Create a new site collection using the Team Site template

2. After created, navigate to the site and verify that at this moment there is only a tab in the top link bar (Home) and it is highlighted as expected.

clip_image002

3. In Site Actions, choose New Page
clip_image004

4. Enter the new page name and click on Create
clip_image006

5. After the page is created, copy the full Url of the new page to your clipboard as you will need this URL to create the link later

6. In Site Actions, choose Site Settings and click on “Top link bar” under Look and Feel
clip_image008

7. On the Top Link Bar page, click on “New Navigation Link”

8. Enter the URL of the new page you have created in item 3 and 4 and also a name for the link then click ok
clip_image010

9. Click on the newly created tab in the Top Link Bar and you will move to the page and the tab will be highlighted
clip_image012

10. When you click on the tab Home in the Top Link Bar you will go to the page, but it will not be highlighted
clip_image014

 

Enough of talking about problems. Let’s go to the solution.

 

Steps to resolve the issue

 

1. On Site Actions choose Site settings and click on Top link bar.
clip_image008[1]

2. You should see all the tabs in the Top Link Bar

3. Click on the Edit icon for the tab Home
clip_image016

4. Make sure you are indeed in the item for Home and click on Delete (confirm the operation when the popup shows up)

clip_image018

5. You will be back to the Top Link Bar page and Home will not be available anymore

6. Click on the link “New Navigation Link” to add the Home tab again with full URL

7. Enter the full url of the home page in the Web Address field and “Home” (without quotes) in the Description field
clip_image020

8. You will be back to the Top Link Navigation Bar and Home will be the last entry
clip_image022

9. Click on the Link Change Order

10. Make sure you change the Link Order of Home to be 1. It will move Home to the first position and reorder the rest. Click OK when done
clip_image024

11. After clicking Ok check to see if Home is indeed in the first position in the Top Link Bar page

12. Click on the Home tab in Top Link Bar and you will be taken to the Home page

13. Home is now highlighted when selected (as expected)
clip_image026

 

You only have to do this once for each site collection facing the problem.