New SharePoint library not showing in Quick Launch after selecting Yes in Library settings

A client reported this issue to me this week.  They had added a new Document Library to a Team Site, and had assigned specific permissions to it.  However, it was never being displayed on the Quick Launch navigation.

We checked the obvious things:

1. Yes, the Display this document library on the Quick Launch? setting was set to Yes.
2. Yes, the user had permissions to the site and document library.
3. We hid and then displayed the Quick Launch using the Site Settings -> Tree View options.

While initially we thought this might be some weird behavior in permissions, I came across this post that mentioned the Current Navigation settings for the site.  So I checked there.

I found that the Current Navigation settings were fine, set to display the navigation items below the current site.

What I also found, however, was that the Structural Navigation: Sorting option was set to Sort Manually.  When I looked in the list of items available for editing and re-sorting the navigation items, the new Library was not shown.

So I flipped the setting to Sort Automatically, and voila, the library appeared in the Navigation items display.  As soon as I saved the navigation settings with the automatic sort, the library also appeared on the Quick Launch menu.

It appears that if the manual sort option is in force, then it is based on a snapshot of the navigation items, and you’d have to manually add the newly added library to the Navigation hierarchy.

Hope that helps someone out there!