My custom query is displaying random posts in random order

Question

Edit: Answered below

Here are my args when returning posts from a custom taxonomy:

$args = array(
    'post_type' => 'products',
    'orderby' => 'date',
    'order' => 'DESC',
    'posts_per_page' => 12,
    'tax_query' => array(
        array(
            'taxonomy' => 'product_category',
            'field' => 'slug',
            'terms' => $category, //This is pulled from a custom field
        ),
    ),
);

For some reason the posts returned are random and in random order. I've been able to fix this by setting posts_per_page to -1, but this wont work for what we are trying to do. I've also been able to fix it by breaking the while loop after creating 12 post items using a counter, but I'd like a better solution and to understand why this is happening. Anyone have any idea why? I've looked around, but the only posts I've been able to find on randomness are people wanting randomness.

Edit: Added 'order' => 'DESC', still shows random posts after the first one

Answer 1

I figured this out. It's because my posts were added with a CSV import which created a ton of posts at once with the exact same timestamp. Changing the orderby to something besides 'date' will suffice for now and I will need to modify my CSV import to add minutes onto the timestamp.