#1754·wpfui

NavigationViewItem does not render MenuItems beyond the 2nd nesting level

Author: SimonGVVCreated Aug 12, 2026Updated Aug 12, 2026
Labelsbug

Describe the bug

When nesting NavigationViewItem.MenuItems three or more levels deep in a NavigationView with PaneDisplayMode="Left", only the first two levels are rendered and expandable. Level 3+ items are never displayed, even though they are correctly present in the data (MenuItems.Count confirms this via debugging), and even when IsExpanded = true is explicitly set on the level-2 parent item.

To Reproduce

csharp
new NavigationViewItem
{
    Content = "Level 1",
    MenuItems =
    {
        new NavigationViewItem
        {
            Content = "Level 2",
            MenuItems =
            {
                new NavigationViewItem
                {
                    Content = "Level 3", // never rendered
                    TargetPageType = typeof(SomePage),
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Expected behavior

NavigationViewItem should support at least the same nesting behavior recursively at any depth, or the limitation should be explicitly documented.

Screenshots

Image

OS version

Windows 11

.NET version

.NET 8

WPF-UI NuGet version

4.3.0

Additional context

No response