Library module Keywords missing after update to LR 13.4

[Jim Leask]

Lightroom Version Number

13.4

Operating System

1. macOS 14 Sonoma

My LR just updated to 13.4. All of my keywords and keyword hierarchy is missing or scrambled. YIKES!

I had a fairly deep hierarchy of keywords, but the top level now has some of these, but many top level keywords are missing, and some of the children keywords show up. Most have a greyed out triangle indicating there aren't any children when there should be.

What happened? Is this a critically bad update? Thanks for any help.

I do have the catalog backup from yesterday, and it was running LR13.3 I believe, and everything was fine at that time.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

This is supposed to be a minor update, that only fixes a few bugs and adds some cameras and lenses. It doesn't do anything major to your catalog, like upgrading it. I would start by making a copy of that catalog backup (so you still have a backup copy) and then use the backup to see if that fixes the issue.

 

[Jim Leask]

This is supposed to be a minor update, that only fixes a few bugs and adds some cameras and lenses. It doesn't do anything major to your catalog, like upgrading it. I would start by making a copy of that catalog backup (so you still have a backup copy) and then use the backup to see if that fixes the issue.

Thanks for the reply. I did as you suggested and went back to my backups (keeping the original backup).

It turns out that was also messed up, but on further inspection and looking much further back, the keywords have been wrong for a while. I think what has been happening is I import some photos from various people, and they have keywords that then show up in my keyword list. This messes up my listing, but I didn't notice the incremental changes until I suddenly paid closer attention to them and saw all of the misplaced and duplicated names. Hopefully that is all it is and my true keyboarding is still in place.

 

[PhilBurton]

It turns out that was also messed up, but on further inspection and looking much further back, the keywords have been wrong for a while. I think what has been happening is I import some photos from various people, and they have keywords that then show up in my keyword list. This messes up my listing, but I didn't notice the incremental changes until I suddenly paid closer attention to them and saw all of the misplaced and duplicated names. Hopefully that is all it is and my true keyboarding is still in place.

Fortunately @Jim Leask kept enough catalog backup to fix his situation. But it bears repeating. Back up every single time you exit Lightroom. If you are doing an all-day work session, exit every few hours just to do a catalog backup. Yes, I'm a noodge about this.

 

[Califdan]

Same problem here with imported images from others that had their KW's. I also had the issue with importing my own images which I had exported several years ago but have since modified my KW structure and fixed spelling and such. To remedy this I created an import Preset that clears all the KW's from images being imported. I named it "Remove Keywords on Import" and use it when importing images from others or which for other reasons may have KW's that don't match my current KW strcture.

In the Preset Editor, click the "Check None" button. Then Check the "Kewords" box and clear the list of keywords. then save the preset

You can also use this method for other import presets such as ones that add your contact and copyright information