diff --git a/lib/topic_query.rb b/lib/topic_query.rb
index f4c84ccaebe..366d3affc0a 100644
--- a/lib/topic_query.rb
+++ b/lib/topic_query.rb
@@ -313,7 +313,7 @@ class TopicQuery
       result
     end
 
-    def remove_muted_categories(list, user, opts)
+    def remove_muted_categories(list, user, opts=nil)
       category_id = get_category_id(opts[:exclude]) if opts
       if user
         list = list.where("NOT EXISTS(
@@ -352,6 +352,8 @@ class TopicQuery
       excluded_topic_ids += Category.pluck(:topic_id).compact
       result = result.where("topics.id NOT IN (?)", excluded_topic_ids) unless excluded_topic_ids.empty?
 
+      result = remove_muted_categories(result, @user)
+
       # If we are in a category, prefer it for the random results
       if topic.category_id
         result = result.order("CASE WHEN topics.category_id = #{topic.category_id.to_i} THEN 0 ELSE 1 END")