Magento products will not show in category

I've recently been tasked with the build and deployment of a large Ecommerce site. In the past we've had to use the clients legacy X-cart installation for redevelopment (too far integrated with their existing work flow).

We'd heard good things about Magento, so I've set up a test install to get to grips with it. After a couple of initial issues, there is a live development site which displays categories on the default theme. The problem we've hit now is that products don't display..!

After a lot more in-depth research into this, all I've been able to discover is that quite a number of developers endorse using other solutions entirely, with the other 50% saying after the steep learning curve the platform is as wonderful as we'd initially been led to believe.

Now, my test category is showing, so I know this is configured properly. I've set up three test products and associated them with this (all done following the Magento user guide), checked double checked and thrice checked the products are enabled and visible individually, yet still the front end says the category has no products in it. I've cleared the cache repeatedly, reset everything possible many times in index management - no products show up.

I have to make a call tomorrow morning on whether we're going ahead with Magento. If I can't even get it to show products I'm going to have to go with something with a more established track record and more community support available. Can anybody advise what could possibly be wrong here?

The checklist for whether items are in stock follows. Some will seem stupid until the first time you spend an hour trying to figure this problem out:

1. The products must be Visible in Catalog.
2. The products must be Enabled.
3. Product must have a stock Quantity.
4. The product must be set to In Stock.
5. If the product is set not to track stock, it still has to have a stock Quantity and be set to In Stock.
6. The product must be assigned to the target Category.
7. If using multi-website mode (or if you imported the products through Data Flow), the products must be assigned to the target Website.
8. You must refresh your Cache / Indices, just to make sure.

Welcome to Magento. Hope that helps!

Joe

Praxis tip: If all products are missing the price index could be a problem. The price index table catalog_product_index_price will be joined in category product list. Also the category/product index could be corrupt. I first check the price index if all products are missing.