Magento Category Custom Design Page Layout not changing - magento

Question

I have turned off caching, but not matter what I do when I edit Admin -> Catalog -> Categories. Then click on the Custom Design and edit Page Layout, and layout from 1 - 3 columns.
None of the changes show up. I've tried this for the Default Site and specific site per category with no updates reflecting the front-end. I can edit the Custom Layout Update area and use something like:
<reference name="root">
<action method="setTemplate"><template>page/1column.phtml</template></action>
</reference>
Or I can edit the local.xml file and force all categories to be a specific layout:
<catalog_category_default>
<reference name="root">
<action method="setTemplate"><template>page/1column.phtml</template></action>
</reference>
</catalog_category_default>
<catalog_category_layered>
<reference name="root">
<action method="setTemplate"><template>page/1column.phtml</template></action>
</reference>
</catalog_category_layered>
However I need the Page Layout options to work. Maybe this has something to do with the layout in local.xml that add / removed things from the left and right side? As a note in the CMS Pages area, I can successfully change the Page Layout.

Answer 1

I found out the issue. I relied on another theme which forced the catalog_category_default to always render 2 columns. This was because update handle sets the applied variable to 1 which ignores admin page layout changes.
Here is what it is doing:
<catalog_category_default>
<update handle="page_two_columns_left"/>
...
</catalog_category_default>
So the only way I could override it was from my own XML update, but it still did not let me update the page layout from the admin.
<catalog_category_default>
<reference name="root">
<action method="setTemplate"><template>page/1column.phtml</template></action>
</reference>
</catalog_category_default>
So the fix was to set the applied variable to 0.
<catalog_category_default>
<reference name="root">
<action method="setIsHandle"><applied>0</applied></action>
<action method="setTemplate"><template>page/1column.phtml</template></action>
</reference>
</catalog_category_default>
This lets me use the Category Layout from the Custom Design tab in the Category Admin
I found this out by locating the handle and reviewing what variables it set. So here was the definition of page_two_columns_left:
<page_two_columns_left translate="label">
<label>All Two-Column Layout Pages (Left Column)</label>
<reference name="root">
<action method="setTemplate"><template>page/2columns-left.phtml</template></action>
<!-- Mark root page block that template is applied -->
<action method="setIsHandle"><applied>1</applied></action>
<action method="setLayoutCode"><name>two_columns_left</name></action>
</reference>
</page_two_columns_left>

Answer 2

Instead of using the reference code to change the layout, do so in admin control panel:
Go to categories / custom design
Find the page layout selection and change to 2 columns with either left or right bar.

Answer 3

Alternative solution:
use the layout update:
<reference name="root">
<action method="setTemplate"><template>page/2columns-left.phtml</template></action>
</reference>
In this way the page layout is changed regardless of the is_handle value