• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Stop struggling with Lightroom! There's no need to spend hours hunting for the answers to your Lightroom Classic questions. All the information you need is in Adobe Lightroom Classic - The Missing FAQ!

    To help you get started, there's a series of easy tutorials to guide you through a simple workflow. As you grow in confidence, the book switches to a conversational FAQ format, so you can quickly find answers to advanced questions. And better still, the eBooks are updated for every release, so it's always up to date.
  • Dark mode now has a single preference for the whole site! It's a simple toggle switch in the bottom right-hand corner of any page. As it uses a cookie to store your preference, you may need to dismiss the cookie banner before you can see it. Any problems, please let us know!

Library module Getting old keywords to be suggested in a new catalog

Status
Not open for further replies.

africalass

Member
Joined
May 8, 2012
Messages
25
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
Classic 9.4
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
Hi all!

After some major issues with my catalog for the first time in over a decade, which took weeks to resolve (even Adobe couldn't figure it out - but eventually I found a single corrupt photo using GoodSync - which was awesome!). By that time I had used a backup catalog, then created a new catalog and imported all the photos from the backup as Adobe requested (using 'import from another catalog' so that all the collections, keywords etc came through). This still kept crashing until I found the one image that was the issue, but I am now back to having a working catalog with very little editing lost :)

The one thing frustrating me with my new catalog is that when I start typing in keywords (whether in the keyword box or in the face recognition square) that it only suggests from a small selection of my existing keywords. These aren't the most recent ones, aren't ones I've used since creating the new catalog and importing, so it seems very random to me which ones it suggests.

If I create a new keyword it will then suggest this on future pics. If I use an existing keyword on a new photo, it won't then suggest it for future pics.

In catalog settings the 'offer suggestions' box is checked. I have tried unchecking and restarting and checking and restarting.
In preferences, interface the 'auto-complete text' box is checked.

Is there any way to tell Lightroom to recognise my existing keywords and use them as suggestions? I have a lot, so deleting and re-writing isn't an option.

Any thoughts appreciated! Thanks
 
For keywords used in face tagging, make sure they are marked as Person. You can quickly check that: In the Keyword List, right-click one of the keywords that doesn't get auto-suggested in face tagging but should and do Edit Keyword Tag. Is Person checked? You can batch-convert many keywords to person keywords by selecting all of them in the Keyword List and doing Convert Keywords To Person Keywords.

Once you do that, if you're still getting keywords that don't auto-complete:

1. In Catalog Settings > Metadata, click Clear All Suggestion Lists.

2. Go to your catalog folder in Finder / File Explorer (do Catalog Settings > General > Show). Delete the file "Catalog Helper.lrdata".

This will also clear the suggestion lists for other fields in the Metadata panel (e.g. Country and State). But LR has been buggy in the past year or two with respect to keyword suggestions, and this recipe seems to fix it (at least for some).
 
Thanks for that! Yes, the person keywords are classed as 'person' ones.

I will close down and try deleting the helper file and let you know :)
 
I have deleted the Helper file (after re-backing-up!!) and it has worked perfectly. My suggestions have all reappeared.

It was driving me crazy, as if I misremembered a keyword (maybe whether plural or not) then I was creating almost duplicates without searching each time. You may have saved my sanity. Thank you.
 
One more query whilst I'm here...

Is there any way to make the cursor in the facial recognition textbox automatically active after manually drawing a box around a face LR didn't spot? Whenever I draw a box, I automatically start typing the name - but as it isn't active I end up activating the shortcuts (for example getting rid of the toolbar if the name has a 't' in it, or jumping to the develop module). I'm trying to remind myself to pause and click in the box to type the name.

Thx
 
The issue with the Helper file when you Import and Keywords is a reported bug.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top