This is something I found by digging through the source code of Memrise on the client side myself. You can find lots of the hidden working of memrise by monitoring what the website sends and receives through chrome’s inspection tools. I wish Memrise would provide an official API or something to allow users with programming experience to take a bit of control over their experience on the website but they don’t. Everything I tell you is something I dug up myself and was inferred from what was seen by manipulating their unofficial api.
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@DrewSSP so what they really need is a way to make the answers database for a word reset? Or reset the whole thing like anki does, check database? I don’t know much about coding but i came to the same conclusion as you, that the words have to make there own list of wrong answers embedded somehow in the word entry in the database. So it can’t be too hard to make it reset with a button?
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I have found the appearance of incorrect or delete entries as alternatives very frustrating.
I was told that if one un-lists a course, saves it, lists it as incomplete and re-saves it then finally make it public and save, it would reset the alternatives but it has never worked for me.
You’re right @Angelbratt, what is needed is a way to make Memrise “refresh” a course database. Changing the status of the course as @DW7 mentions is unlikely to force Memrise to do this. I say that because, if I was programming Memrise, I would not see any reason to connect a feature that refreshes the database to a change in the course’s status. This is especially true if refreshing the database is a feature that has not yet been developed, which seems to currently be the case.
I’ve mentioned here and there that one can add a character to the word, save the change, then undo the change to revert the word to what it was before. This will refresh everything related to that one part of that specific word. The script that I provided earlier in this thread does that for every single part of every single word in a database automatically. It’s a work around that gives users the power to do something that Memrise should really have a feature for.
A nice side effect of using the script is that the alternative answers become a lot more intelligent and answering questions becomes a bit trickier.
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Hi @DrewSSP,
I have a problem with this course in level 2
I went through and added a “z” to the front of every bird and saved it and when I was presented with
“zFledgeling” I got the same dummy photo of a fighter (which MemRise told me some time ago was a bug).
I then went back and added “zzz” at the end, resaved and still got the same fighter!
I then finally deleted both sets of z’s and saved it and when tested on “Fledgeling” still got the fighter.
I haven’t changed the word to something completely different (eg “TEMP”) but I could try that if you like.
Or would you mind inspecting it and dealing with it?
Let me know if you’d like to be a Contributor.
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@DW7 I’m very curious about whether there is a hole in my findings. So yes, make me a contributor please, if you are willing. If you’d like, I can also run my script on it while I’m inspecting and see if that doesn’t fix the whole course for you.
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Many thanks! Will do.
The image also appeared with Lark (I think).
And there is a “broken link” no picture offered with Condor!
So have a look at those too, if you wouldn’t mind.
PS I also deleted the word completely and added “temp” and it still presented the image!
May I suggest you do an auto_grow aka learn to make testing quicker. 
This is worth mentioning to everybody. My script only works for things that are written in text. If there are images or audio, it will skip that part.
@DW7 The issue should be fixed for you. Note that when you change a part of a word, it will only refresh the alternate answers that will exist for questions that ask for that part of the word. In your database you have two columns. One shows a picture of an animal, the other the name of the animal. When you took my advice, you changed the name of the animal. That would have changed the alternate answers for any questions that show a picture of an animal and you need to choose the name of the animal from a list. Not the other way around. If you are asked to choose from a list of pictures and some of the pictures are wrong (which is your problem), then you will need to change something in the pictures column of the word. I fixed your issue by deleting the images for the problematic animals and then re-uploading them. That caused Memrise to refresh the pictures that it uses in your sessions.
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Many thanks @DrewSSP for not only fixing it but explaining how to do it in future.
I must admit, I was coming to the same conclusion, namely to save the image, delete it and redo it.
Did you find the blank photo image as well?
I’ll have a trial and let you know!
PS
No picture of fighter, thanks!
But
Emu, Cormorant, Crow, Budgerigar and Cassowary
in level two (when fully planted) showed me the blank link - (which I have now ‘corrected’ thanks to your training).
@DrewSSP have the Admins mentioned creating a feature like reset or refresh database? Because it is clearly needed. Like I said earlier I don’t know much about code so I’m not sure how to use your script. But the hard way to do it seem to be deleting words with issues and reentering them into the database entirely. Since I have already done that I’m not having issues anymore. Still it would be nice if a mod or admin mentioned if it was in the works at least since it seems to be causing a lot of bugs in courses.
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@Angelbratt I don’t believe anybody has. Communication from the Memrise team is somewhat lacking and has been for a long time. If anybody has heard something from the team, please do chime in!
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I wonder if somebody would like to add this “reset button” suggestion to this thread, please:
Cc @Angelbratt
@DrewSSP, I think it would be really helpful if you documented your “script” and “delete, save and reload” solutions to “How to eliminate incorrect answers that are no longer visible in the database” (or other suitable title) in this area, if you wouldn’t mind.
http://community.memrise.com/c/community-hub/course-creator-corner
Perhaps it could be added to @Angelbratt’s thread she has already started:
Angelbratt, would you approve a different title including "How to . . " at the start?
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i did not understand what angelbratt wanted (and deleting entries and re-writing them does not help). There is a thread with user scripts…
Ahh, thanks! That totally answers my question.
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I wonder if the easiest way to force Memrise to reevaluate entries is for each lesson, add a blank entry, save, delete entry again.
Of course anything is possible, but that specific action would go against my findings. As I said, each word is basically blind to anything that you do elsewhere in the database. It doesn’t matter what level, course, or database a word is in. If you want to fix the phantom answers in a word, you will have to mess around with that specific word.
and memrise gives us the cadeau of even more phantom entries! now, after ruining my eyes to comply with the latest memrise requirements (which are as always in dictatorship manner, i.e. “take it or leave it”), my databases are full with phantom entries.
@Hydroptere ~ I have to admit this fear was my initial gut reaction when I read the news from @BenWhately about the change in comma formats. I purposely did not touch any of my courses because of this fear. But if changes have effected (affected ?) your courses, then one would imagine they would do so with similar changes to the underlying Memrise-official course databases whenever they made their changes. If they didn’t, then perhaps they know a way to get rid of them (without using @DrewSSP’s script). If that is the case, then maybe they should share how they did it. If their databases were not effected (affected ?) but ours are, then why is this ?