LR Classic: keyword search does not find existing keywords

Report · Jan 26, 2024

Following one of the recent LR updates, the LR keywords search exhibits a severe bug: a search does not find keyword tag entries that definitely exist within the keyword list (LR Classic, 13.1, Windows 10).

My keyword list is large - about 3.8K entries (yes, I need it this size). Searching/filtering for one particular substring that I used as part of several entries suddenly does not work any more. Whenever I filter on this specific substring (or the entire keyword) that has more than ten occurrences in the keyword tag hierarchy, the search field shows no result. However, when I scroll down the keyword list these items do exist. They show up and can be selected.

And - surprise: if I add the keyword (the entire one or as a substring) once more somewhere within the keyword hierarchy, a new search/filter finds this new entry. Still, the other instances stay hidden, are not shown. I even tried to add a new keyword tag having the same name below one that the search does not find: then the search finds it (and displays the parent tags as part of the search result). As soon as I delete the newly created tag, the parent tag (matching the same substring) are now longer found.

In terms of databases I suspect some kind of indexing to happen - and to fail - on the keyword tag list. Exporting the keywords list works - and the resulting CSV seems to include all entries - even the ones that the keywords search does not find. However, considering that the catalog contains many tens of thousands of tagged photos it's absolutely no option to export and re-import the keywords list.

So I have two requests to Adobe's technical support:

1) please fix this keywords indexing bug asap. It's really, really annoying to not trust the keywords search (even worse: to know that it fails deterministically - and that there seems no way to fix it)

2) one of the reasons why I upgraded from LR 6.14 to LR classic was the hope to have the hidden metadata window issue solved (the pane does not display if the keywords list includes too many visible entries). However, this bug has not been fixed, too (I found related bug reports dating back to more than five years ago).

Overall, such bugs may be acceptable for a $10 shareware but not for a software claiming to be committed to professional quality...

Report · Jan 26, 2024

Your total number of keywords does not sound as large as that for the member in the discussion i will provide link to below. But see the discussion, especially as it relates to your issue number 2 that may be a Windows OS issue as opposed to just a LrC issue.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/nowegian-letters-æ-ø-and-å-as-first-let...

and from that link, an older one

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-windows-panel-is-limited-to-1600-items-folde...

Report · Jan 28, 2024

Many thanks for the hint - yes, the issue seems to be the special character (localization) issue. In my case it's a german "Ö", so searching for "Ötscher" does not yield a result, even though there are 16 occurrences (so rather few) in the keywords list. Searching for "tscher" works, indeed.

Surprisingly, I'm absolutely sure that the search for "Ötscher" worked in some older releases. Moreover, if I add a new keyword "Ötscher" somewhere in the keyword hierarchy, a search for "Ötscher" - even with capital "Ö" - finds it. So I've no clue what exactly makes the LR index "forget" these special character keywords at a later point in time - but in any case it's a bug worth fixing (or at least documenting).

Thanks again for your help (and to all other who replied!)

Report · Jan 28, 2024

The issue referenced above is unrelated to the Norwegian letters but rather was caused by the size of the keyword list exceeding the Windows maximum.

It's possible, but perhaps less likely, that your issue is also caused by exceeding the Windows maximum number of keywords. But before diving into that, do the initial troubleshooting steps I listed above -- they might fix the issue of the older keywords not appearing when you type "Ötscher".

Report · Jan 27, 2024

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Some initial troubleshooting steps:

1. Click the magnifying glass in the Filter Keywords box and ensure All is selected:

2. Try deleting the Helper.lrdata folder:

a) Do Catalog Settings > General > Show to open Finder / File Explorer on the current catalog folder.
b) Exit LR.
c) In that folder, delete the folder "<catalog> Helper.lrdata".
d) Restart LR, and it will rebuild the folder.

The Helper.lrdata folder caches information about metadata, keywords, folders, collections, and other things to speed the performance of LR and it can sometimes get corrupted. In recent versions, LR has used it more heavily to improve the speed of displaying metadata, and there have been a fair number of bugs with it.

3. Try resetting LR's preferences:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/

LR sometimes soils its preferences file, and resetting it can fix all sorts of wonky behavior. That article explains how to restore the old preferences if resetting doesn't help.