While continuing to research this problem, I came across a forum thread that I had not found previously.
http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?194506-Dynamic-Filter-1-0-not-working-for-Options
It seems like a problem that is similar to ours. So, I have attempted to follow the advice given in this post.
I added the 'die' statement to tpl_dynamic_filter.php and went to site to get the readout. This is what came up (with database prefix removed):
**SELECT DISTINCT p.products_id, p.products_type, p.master_categories_id, p.manufacturers_id, p.products_price, p.products_tax_class_id, pd.products_description, IF(s.status = 1, s.specials_new_products_price, NULL) as specials_new_products_price, IF(s.status =1, s.specials_new_products_price, p.products_price) as final_price, p.products_sort_order, p.product_is_call, p.product_is_always_free_shipping, p.products_qty_box_status FROM products p LEFT JOIN specials s on p.products_id = s.products_id LEFT JOIN products_description pd on p.products_id = pd.products_id JOIN products_to_categories p2c on p.products_id = p2c.products_id JOIN products_attributes p2a on p.products_id = p2a.products_id JOIN products_options po on p2a.options_id = po.products_options_id JOIN products_options_values pov on p2a.options_values_id = pov.products_options_values_id WHERE p.products_status = 1 and pd.language_id = '1' and p2c.categories_id = '3' GROUP BY p.products_id HAVING ( FIND_IN_SET("FrameColorFamilygold", GROUP_CONCAT(CONCAT(REPLACE(po.products_options_name, " ", ""), pov.products_options_values_name))))
**
As suggested, I went to phpMyAdmin and entered this information into the SQL box. It returned this message "MySQL returned an empty result set (i.e. zero rows)."
This is not the same result as the person from the other thread. Does anyone have an idea as to how I should proceed? I will continue to try what was suggested in the other thread but I'm not really sure if it applies to me since I didn't get the same result.
Also, since the filter works on some categories and not others, we tried to think of reasons why this might be. The only difference we came up with is that the categories where the filter doesn't work have an attribute where pricing by attribute is applied. We have excluded this attribute from Dynamic Filter through the configuration menu in admin so I don't think that would be the problem but since I can't come up with anything else, I just wondered.
Thanks.