I've setup a Magento 2.1.2 and things seem to be working fine (categories, attribute sets, etc.).
The first test product though I created a simple product from the default attribute set an had:
- Enable Product: Yes
- Quantity: 100
- Stock status: In Stock
- Categories: MyTest
- Visibility: Catalog,Search
- Websites: Main Website
After saving it, it doesn't show in my category. Then I ran the cronjob, the indexes got updated and nothing shows up. Then I flushed the cashes, still nothing on the frontend. I search for the SKU, nothing shows up as well. I'm wondering whether I'm missing something?
php bin/magento indexer:reindex
and now it's working. So I just assumed I ran the index with the crons but actually didn't - sorry for the trouble caused.