How can I get rid of the the category suffix--NOT “prefix” (i.e. foo-1, foo-2, etc)

Question

I just added a new category to my WordPress site, but the WP is adding a "-2" to the url as if there was an existing category with the same name. But there isn't. There was, but I deleted it. How can I resolve this?

I'm don't mind mucking around with the database in order to manually change the values (if necessary) but I would appreciate some guidance form somebody who knows what they are doing.

Answer 1

Go into the trash from the category list and hit "Empty Trash".

As long as the category is in the trash, the slug is considered 'in use'.

ETA: This is obviously not right, as there's no trash in categories. Instead, using phpMyAdmin, go to database->wp_terms, and delete the row with the category information.

Walkthrough here.