P: Contains Words Bug (Big Mallard Ducks)

[areohbee]

'Contains Words' has a data sensitive bug that causes it to behave seemingly flaky.

Details are findable on the forum if the forum search ever gets fixed. I remember it by the keyword: "Big Mallard Ducks". Try searching for a photo with this keyword using 'Contains Words' and the various contained words and you'll see the problem - somebody already identified detailed cause - see somewhere on the Photoshop Lightroom forum.

I never use keywords with spaces anymore, so this bug means nothing to me personally.

This one falls in the category of "should be fixed next rev" in my opinion - it has persisted for a long time now.

[areohbee]

This problem *really* needs to be acknowledged, and fixed!!!

Its repeatable on both platforms - its strange but its true and *really* needs to be fixed - preferably in next dot release, but certainly come Lr4.

Makes Lightroom keyword handling *appear* flaky because it *is* flaky - not good, no not good at all..........

This bug was *not* in Lr2 - first presented in Lr3, still present @LR3.4.1.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

IIRC, the problem shows up when the last letter of a word is the same as the first letter of the adjacent word. That's why "big mallard ducks" fails.

(Can't even find my own posts because of the really annoying search bug. Really, how useful is a forum that you can't search in?)

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

You must be looking for this thread.

You'll find it by using Google with
"big mallard ducks" site:forums.adobe.com
.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks for the search tip.

[Benjamin Warde]

Problem acknowledged. 🙂 I've written this up in our bug database, thanks for the report.

-Ben

[areohbee]

Not sure why the web guy (or gal) can't take a minute to fix that forum search...

[areohbee]

Not fixed @LR3.6

PS - One can find "Big Mallard Ducks" (Contains Words) just fine in a 'Title' - maybe the problem is just with keywords.

Did Adobe look into fixing this before Lr3.6 was released, but couldn't come up with an expedient enough solution, or has fixing this bug never been seriously considered yet?

[areohbee]

Not fixed @Lr4B1

[areohbee]

Not fixed @LR4.0

[mlawczys]

You can work arothis bug by adding two spaces between offending words. "Mallard duck" will not work but "Mallard duck" (two spaces between mallard and duck will.

[mlawczys]

Keywords which consists of several words do not work properly when a word starts with the same character as a previous word ends. For example - if you tag a photo with a keyword: "South March Highlands" you will not be able to get search results with "highlands" word (using text search on keywords with keywords "contains words"). No hits. Simply because "Highlands" start with the same character as a previous word "March" ends. This is always true no matter how many words you have in a keyword. I tried different words and different letter combination - always the same result. The workaround is to use two spaces between words in a tag when you have one word ending with some character and the next word begining with the same character. For example if my tag is now: "South March Highlands" (two spaces between Macrh and Highlands, my searches on keyword "Highlands" give expected results.

[areohbee]

Wow. Thank you Miroslaw.

Although I wish Adobe would just fix this already (more for their sake than mine), this is a good workaround for now.

I've been using:
* SpaceUrchin
* AnyFilter

which work around it, and also extend Lightroom's search and filter capability.

[areohbee]

Not fixed @LR4.2, and the double-space work-around no longer works around it.

[areohbee]

@LR4.2, this work-around no longer works-around - so, a step backwards... Thank goodness for plugins like SpaceUrchin and AnyFilter.

[areohbee]

Not fixed @Lr5b.
(is this really so hard to fix?)

You've heard the phrase "JDI" (just do it). Well, I'd like to coin a new phrase JFA (just fix already).

As it stands, I just tell people "Contains Words" is buggy - don't use it (or at least: you can't trust it), to avoid having to explain the "Big Mallard Ducks" affliction. I'd rather not have to go through that.

It's no problem for me, since I know how to get around it, but not everybody is aware of the bug, or knows how to work around: for them - Lr just seems flaky...

[Babar_e]

I have been bugged by this bug for years now, and I do not see why I should add 2 space, that is a workaround but not a solution.
Please fix it
thanks

[areohbee]

Not fixed @LR5.3RC (and 2-space work-around still doesn't work around it anymore).

[J453]

This should be fixed in Lightroom CC/Lightroom 6.

[John R Ellis]

Excellent! (Better late than never...)