First Q: Weird keywords in list

[JCsail123]

Hi,

My first question. I haven't found an answer to this anywhere.

LR version 9.3; Dell XPS Windows 10 ver. 10.0.18363 and using a 4T WD external hard drive for Lightroom photos.

After a false start I deleted all folders on the WD external hard drive, revamped my folders structure and re-imported all into a new catalog by folder structure (not date). So far, so good. But when I go to start adding keywords I find a whole list already there. And the names are weird and long - lots of yy yyy yy y with umlauts on each [see screenshot]. The question: how can I delete them all? [I can delete them one by one]. And, what are they; where did they cone from?

Thanks!!

[Rob_Cullen · Accepted solution]

What a "doozy". Never seen this before in the forums. And no answers for "where did they come from?"

Unless your files are corrupt in some way to include this craziness in their metadata (which will 'import' to Lr).

However it should be easy to delete them all from this catalog-

1) Select the top line 'parent' keyword to highlight

2) Hold down [Shift] and select the bottom line (scroll down first if needed)-  All keywords will highlight.

3) Click on the header [ - ] and you will get an option to Delete.

Or if you have not done any work/editing in this catalog- It might be simpler to start another new Catalog and import the files again, but this time using the [ADD] option that will leave them in the folders where they are now. If these Keywords re-appear then they indeed do have this in the metadata. Other suggestions will be needed.

[JCsail123]

Thanks. I had tried that but it didn't work. I tried again, just selecting a few keywords, and it only deleted the first (?!?) So I guess it will be one by one.

[ManiacJoe]

This data is being read from a corrupted section of the database (or corrupted section of memory).

I would exit LR (gracefully or otherwise) and then have LR do a database check.

[JCsail123]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure how to have LR do a database check. The only "how to" I find is for corrupted catalog - but I'm not getting any message that the catalog is corrupted.

FWIW 1:  I had tried "Purge unused keywords" and it did nothing, so I'm assuming these are associated with photos.

FWIW 2:  I Imported by "Copy as DNG" since I had some Pentax RAW files. Also the import included a bunch of scanned slides and photos and I had edited metadata pre-import, to change dates from scanned date to the date the photo/slide was taken. Total import was some 58,000 photos from external hard drives, originally from 3 cameras and 4 cell phones (taken 2004-present), with about 7,500 Pentax RAW and probably a few thousand scanned 35mm slides (TIFF) and a few scanned photos (JPEG).

[johnrellis]

It's very possible these bogus keywords are coming from one or more of the imported photos that have corrupted metadata. If you want to verify that, select one of the photos that's assigned such a keyword, upload it to Dropbox or similar, and post the sharing link here. We can stick it under the microscope to see how it might have gotten corrupted.

"I tried again, just selecting a few keywords, and it only deleted the first (?!?)"

Make sure you click the "-" button at the top of the Keyword List panel, rather than right-clicking and selecting Delete. LR has a longstanding bug where Delete only deletes one of multiple selected keywords.

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[JCsail123]

Thanks for the reply.

I think I found an answer (although it will be tedious):  I went to one of the photos with the weird keyword as you suggested.

Then, outside of Lightroom I went into the folder and selected one it and went to Properties > Details. Sure enough, there was the weird tag. So I went to Remove Properties and Personal Information and removed just the tag. I can do this as batch for all photos in the folder the folder since I haven't started applying keywords yet in Lightroom.

So all I have to do is keep checking in Lightroom which photos have these wierd tags, then remove them outside of Lightroom - and when I start Lightroom again the tags in question should all be gone. (I hope!)

If that doesn't work for all the imported photos I could do it with before import and re-import all again.

[JCsail123]

Oh, I suppose I'll also still have to delete all the weird keywords in Lightroom.

[JCsail123]

Thanks for the tip about the "-", since I was trying to delete with right click.

[JCsail123]

Actually, it looks like I can just delete them in Lightroom and they won't recur.

These all seem to be photos I had received from a friend, so maybe they had been tagged by some system he has and were actually not corrupted. (I know he used them for a slideshow, for instance). FWIW his camera was a Kodak EasyShare Z990.

So, I hope the problem is solved.

[johnrellis]

"they had been tagged by some system he has and were actually not corrupted."

They may have been written by a program that doesn't conform to the industry standards.

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[Andre.Ip]

Well now, think DEUSENBERG, that fancy up-scale automobile in the early decades of the 1900's. Say, to doosy up, make it bright and shiny like. Hey, it's a 'doosy'. Like something extraordinary, unique, exceptional, almost like an exclamation ... but never an expletive though, not in the same spirit. Americanism is dooted with these emotionalized words which, perhaps, may have led to the unintentional tropes of things like the EMOTICONS. Etymology is skinny about these origins although they often betray themselves simply by their sounds and evocative intentions. Hahahaha ...