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Known Participant
Nov 13, 2019 1:58 AM UTC
Released

P: Deleting a keyword from the keyword list doesn't remove it from auto complete

If someone has already reported this I apologize. I did try to search for it but couldn't find anything with the keywords I was using.

If I enter a misspelled keyword accidentally it continues to show up in "Autocomplete" even though I delete it from the Keyword List.

I've never had this happen before. I recently upgraded to the 9.0 release.

My specific example of this behavior is when I go through to keyword basketball photos one of my keywords is Dribble. In the past I could type in dri and hit enter and it would autocomplete Dribble. I accidentally entered dri9 (the 9 is above the right side of the I key) and when I hit RightArrow to move to the next photo it entered dri9 into the keyword list. On the next dribbling photo when I typed dri it showed dri9 as the top option in autocomplete. I went into the keyword list and deleted the dri9 keyword. That removed it from the photo and from the keyword list but it still shows up in autocomplete.

I tried to see if I could remove it by entering dri9 in a different photo. This added it back to the keyword list. I went into the list and deleted the dri9 keyword again. That removed it from the photo and autocomplete again but then when I tried to enter dribble I noticed that I now had two instances of dri9 in the autocomplete popup. I continued to try exiting lightroom and backing up/optimizing the catalog and entering and deleting the keyword. Nothing worked although I now have four instances of dri9 in the autocomplete popup. There is also another keyword that it has happened on although I can't remember what it is now.

One other thing I did try using the Filter Keywords box in the keywords list and can't find dri9 anywhere.

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38 replies

johnrellis
Legend
Feb 2, 2020 3:42 PM UTC
The Helper.lrdata is a Mac "package" that contains a SQLite database file. The format of that database is undocumented, and changing it requires technical proficiency with databases and one of several different applications that can read and write SQLite databases.  Unlike editing the main catalog database file, editing this database file is much lower risk, since it's safe to delete the file entirely;
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Participating Frequently
Feb 2, 2020 2:06 PM UTC
How did you manually remove the bad entry? I am on a Mac and there is no program to edit that file.

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Lauca
Participating Frequently
Jan 31, 2020 8:30 PM UTC
I've tried 3 methods for solving this; none have worked:
  3. deleted helper.lrdata file associated with catalog

This is strange because helper.lradata is where the suggested list is kept by LR, so removing it suppress the suggested list.
When I discovered this bug, I even fixed the suggested list by manually removing the bad entry in the helper.lradata (what the remove keyword process forget to do), so I didn't loose other keyword suggestions.
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johnrellis
Legend
Jan 31, 2020 6:23 PM UTC
"I mistakenly added a keyword that starts with a space"

Do you know how you might have done that? LR normally doesn't allow you to create a keyword starting or ending with a space:



Does that keyword still appear in the Keyword List panel? If so, delete it -- otherwise, LR will continue to suggest it.

Also, did you restart LR after deleting Helper.lrdata?
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Inspiring
Jan 31, 2020 6:15 PM UTC
I'm also experiencing this problem; unable to delete keyword autofills/ suggestion lists. I'm on MacOS 10.15.2, using LR Classic 9.1.

I've tried 3 methods for solving this; none have worked:

  1. clicked on "clear all suggestion lists"
  2. deleted LR preferences
  3. deleted helper.lrdata file associated with catalog
If anyone knows of any other methods, please let me know. I mistakenly added a keyword that starts with a space, and it keeps popping up everytime I try to add keywords, very annoying.
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Inspiring
Jan 30, 2020 10:38 PM UTC
So bad behaviour. I'm affected too, ended with 9 same duplicate entries (on screenshot 5 of them), until was told a workaround on LightQueen forums. 



Fix is so much awaited!
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Participant
Jan 2, 2020 12:36 AM UTC
Thanks John!  The suggested work around is most helpful.
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Participant
Jan 2, 2020 12:34 AM UTC
I was unable to affect (delete) the incorrectly spelled suggested word. So I have used the suggested work around and erased the suggested keywords.  I'm fine with this work around!  Big thanks to all here...
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Participating Frequently
Jan 1, 2020 9:49 PM UTC
This should be added to the bug report. It makes no sense to ignore the changes to images in stacks.
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Inspiring
Jan 1, 2020 6:40 PM UTC
In some other applications that provide suggestions based on typing history, I've been able to just scroll down to the incorrect word when the list appears and hit the Delete key to delete any incorrectly spelt word from that list. I haven't tried that with LR, but if that worked it may be better than the relatively nuclear option of clearing all LR suggestions...
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