A category cannot be deleted as long as it contains sub categories, even when there are no downloads in the sub categories. Deleting all sub categories manually is extremely time consuming when you have a deep level setup.

This is a (safety) feature and not a bug.
This handling exist in jDownloads since the first release.

ok, then maybe it is time to rethink that "feature"    ... which actually is a bug - a usability bug - if you feel it is necessary to protect the user from accidentally deleting a category, you could bring up a confirmation dialog.

Hi Carin
I think you are being a little unkind perhaps - it is a design feature but one which obviously you do not like for a very practical reason.  I too have found it annoying having to work backwards through all the sub categories.  An alternative to a simple 'Are you sure' scheme might be to allow 'delete category and its sub categories if unpublished'.  This  also requires a positive user step, but it is I suggest a more meaningful step particularly as some people have their mouse set up to automatically focus on a question..

Perhaps we should put this into the suggestion forum stream.

Colin 

Has this ever been implemented? I now had to delete a category through the phpmyadmin.

Has this ever been implemented? I now had to delete a category through the phpmyadmin.

Why? It is not recommended to use this 'specially' way.
To delete all sub categories from a main category required normally only a few seconds. By the way, in 13 years you are only the second user who does not like our normal delete handling.