If you encounter problems while customizing global site navigation in a custom site definition for SharePoint 2010, you probably can solve it by adding the necessary navbar element in navbars section of the onet.xml:

<NavBar Name="$Resources:core,category\_Top;"
    Separator="&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;"
    Body="&lt;a ID='onettopnavbar#LABEL\_ID#' href='#URL#' accesskey='J'&gt;#LABEL#&lt;/a&gt;"
    ID="1002" />

It solved the problems for me :).

Comments from Wordpress.com

Chilly - Nov 3, 2012

How did you edit the Onet.XML file? What if this is only happening on one site in a whole site colleciton will this help this site as well. Thanks for any help you can give. This problem is bugging me on one of my sites.