Wordpress: the_post_navigation() 'excluded_terms' not excluding posts - wordpress

Question

I'm trying to create the next/previous post navigation for single post on a wordpress blog.
There is a post category called "lifestyle-blog" with id 37 that is different from other posts, so the navigation on the posts in that category is supposed to display only posts from that category, while on all other posts it should display posts from all categories except from the one with id 37.
I was able to set the navigation on posts from "lifestyle-blog" category to display only the posts from that category, but I don't understand why I can't exclude "lifestyle-blog" category posts from the navigation on posts from other categories.
Here is the code I'm using at the moment.
$next_post = get_next_post();
$previous_post = get_previous_post();
if (has_category( 'lifestyle-blog', $post )) {
$in_same_term = true;
$post_ids = '';
} else {
$in_same_term = false;
$cat_post_ids = get_posts(array(
'numberposts' => -1, // get all posts.
'tax_query' => array(
array(
'taxonomy' => 'category',
'field' => 'id',
'terms' => '37',
),
),
'fields' => 'ids', // Only get post IDs
));
$post_ids = implode( ',', $cat_post_ids );
}
the_post_navigation( array(
'next_text' => '<div class="next-text"><span class="meta-nav">' . __( 'Next: ', 'twentyfifteen' ) . '</span> ' . '<span class="post-title">%title</span></div>' . get_the_post_thumbnail($next_post->ID,'paging-thumb'),
'prev_text' => get_the_post_thumbnail($previous_post->ID,'paging-thumb') . '<div class="prev-text"><span class="meta-nav">' . __( 'Previous: ', 'twentyfifteen' ) . '</span> ' .'<span class="post-title">%title</span></div>',
'in_same_term' => $in_same_term,
'excluded_terms' => $post_ids
) );
I tried placing print_r($post_ids) beneath the navigation, and on regular posts it prints the string of comma separated ids of posts from lifestyle-blog, so I don't understand why they are not excluded from the_post_navigation().
Can anyone help me solve this?

Answer 1

I ended up ditching the_post_navigation() in favor of next_post_link() and previous_post_link()
$cat_id = get_cat_ID( 'Lifestyle Blog' );
$taxonomy = array(
'category'
);
$ct_args = array(
'exclude' => array($cat_id),
'fields' => 'ids'
);
$ct_ids = get_terms( $taxonomy, $ct_args );
if (has_category( 'lifestyle-blog', $post )) {
$in_same_term = true;
$excluded_terms = $ct_ids;
$next_post = get_next_post($in_same_term, $excluded_terms);
$previous_post = get_previous_post($in_same_term, $excluded_terms);
} else {
$in_same_term = false;
$excluded_terms = $cat_id;
$next_post = get_next_post($in_same_term, $excluded_terms);
$previous_post = get_previous_post($in_same_term, $excluded_terms);
}
$prev_text = '<div class="next-text"><span class="meta-nav">' . __( 'Next: ', 'twentyfifteen' ) . '</span> ' . '<span class="post-title">%title</span></div>' . get_the_post_thumbnail($previous_post->ID,'paging-thumb');
$next_text = get_the_post_thumbnail($next_post->ID,'paging-thumb') . '<div class="prev-text"><span class="meta-nav">' . __( 'Previous: ', 'twentyfifteen' ) . '</span> ' .'<span class="post-title">%title</span></div>';
<nav class="navigation post-navigation">
<div class="nav-links">
<div class="nav-previous">
<?php next_post_link('%link', $next_text, $in_same_term, $excluded_terms); ?>
</div>
<div class="nav-next">
<?php previous_post_link('%link', $prev_text, $in_same_term, $excluded_terms); ?>
</div>
</div>
</nav>