diff --git a/src/suql/faiss_embedding.py b/src/suql/faiss_embedding.py
index d0a11fe..291b2c2 100644
--- a/src/suql/faiss_embedding.py
+++ b/src/suql/faiss_embedding.py
@@ -285,11 +285,12 @@ def dot_product(self, id_list, query, top, individual_id_list=[]):
                 for sublist in map(lambda x: self.id2document[x], individual_id_list)
                 for item in sublist
             ]
-        embedding_indices = [
+        # remove potential duplicates here
+        embedding_indices = list(dict.fromkeys([
             item
             for sublist in map(lambda x: self.document2embedding[x], document_indices)
             for item in sublist
-        ]
+        ]))
 
         query_embedding = embed_query(query)
 
@@ -301,8 +302,8 @@ def dot_product(self, id_list, query, top, individual_id_list=[]):
                 params=faiss.SearchParametersIVF(sel=sel),
             )
         else:
-            if top > self.embeddings.ntotal:
-                top = self.embeddings.ntotal
+            if top > min(self.embeddings.ntotal, len(embedding_indices)):
+                top = min(self.embeddings.ntotal, len(embedding_indices))
             D, I = self.embeddings.search(
                 query_embedding, top, params=faiss.SearchParametersIVF(sel=sel)
             )
diff --git a/src/suql/sql_free_text_support/execute_free_text_sql.py b/src/suql/sql_free_text_support/execute_free_text_sql.py
index 8d34408..82e474f 100644
--- a/src/suql/sql_free_text_support/execute_free_text_sql.py
+++ b/src/suql/sql_free_text_support/execute_free_text_sql.py
@@ -723,10 +723,13 @@ def _retrieve_and_verify(
             enforce_ordering=True if node.sortClause is not None else False,
         )
     else:
-        id_res = []
+        id_res = set()
         for each_res in parsed_result:
             if _verify_single_res(each_res, field_query_list, llm_model_name):
-                id_res.append(each_res[0])
+                if isinstance(each_res[0], list):
+                    id_res.update(each_res[0])
+                else:
+                    id_res.add(each_res[0])
 
     end_time = time.time()
     logging.info("retrieve + verification time {}s".format(end_time - start_time))