wordpress - category__not_in not working

Question

I'm having a problem getting my query function. I need to run the loop, excluding a particular category.

I'm trying to use category__not_in, but is not working at all some.

<?php
  $args = array(
    'post_type' => 'post',
    'post_status' => 'publish',
    'category__not_in' => array( '44' ),
    'posts_per_page' => 9,
    'paged' => get_query_var('paged')
  );
  $query = new WP_Query( $args );

  query_posts($query);
?>

I've already tried:

'category__not_in' => array( '44' ),
'category__not_in' => array( 44 ),
'category__not_in' => '44',
'category__not_in' => 44,

But nothing works =(

Answer 1

Try using tax_query instead :

<?php
  $args = array(
    'post_type' => 'post',
    'post_status' => 'publish',
    'posts_per_page' => 9,
    'paged' => get_query_var('paged'),
    'tax_query' => array(
        array(
            'taxonomy' => '<YOUR TAXONOMY NAME>',
            'field'    => 'term_id',
            'terms'    => array( 44 ),
            'operator' => 'NOT IN',
        ),
    ),

  );
  $query = new WP_Query( $args );

  query_posts($query);
?>