Drop-down filter doesn’t retrieve custom taxonomies

is it because you aren’t returning a value to the parse_query filter? or otherwise passing it by reference.

function parse_query(&$query) {  //added the reference &
            global $pagenow;
            $qv = &$query->query_vars;
            if ($pagenow=='edit.php' &&
                isset($qv['taxonomy']) && $qv['taxonomy']=='page_sections' &&
                isset($qv['term']) && is_numeric($qv['term']) &&$qv['term']>0) { //added check for greater than 0 as the default ALL is zero and that throws some warnings
                    $term = get_term_by('id',$qv['term'],'page_sections');
                    $qv['term'] = $term->slug;
                }
        }

other than that this looks very much like the code i just used this weekend found: Adding a Taxonomy Filter to Admin List for a Custom Post Type?