Categories set to hide, but products are not hidden

[smallfarm]

On my online store, we hide and unhide products through categories during a set ordering period. Over the last few weeks, products are no longer hiding when I set their category to hide (after functioning previously) And now I have to disable the whole store rather keeping a smaller set products available for purchase. I've double checked that the products are in a correct category, used different browser, cleared browser cache and forced a publishing of the website. In a previous troubleshooting issue with Square Online, our accounts cache was somehow messed up on Square's side and now I'm wondering if that's happening again?

[smallfarm]

Found another user reporting the same thing and it seems this is suddenly a "feature"? What purpose does "hiding" a category do if it's not going to hide the products in/under it? Very frustrating and makes me feel nickle and dimed.

Thread where another user encounters my issue:
Category hidden yet items still display in "separate ITEMS" section below 

[BernadetteA]

Hi @smallfarm 👋 Thanks for bringing this up. Are you referring to the Time-Based Categories feature? 

Can you please post a link to your website, as well as let us know an example of a category that should be hidden? If you have screenshots that would be helpful as well.

Thanks in advance! I'll be on the lookout for your response.