Background of the issue:
We are running the following project:
- translate full site (mostly WooCommerce products, and some pages and posts) from Dutch to new language automatically.
- have a native speaker check and edit the translations.
- after this, automatic translation should no longer performed on these translations, so the basic setting is "Choose what you translate", then I select all products, and send them to automatic translation.
- this all seemed to be working well. We have automatically translated to English, German, French and Spanish.
Symptoms:
What has been happening for the past few days, is that product translations carefully edited by the native speakers, are now being resubmitted for automatic translation without any kind of action from us, as far as I have been able to find.
Questions:
If I check the tasks, I see those same products have been re-assigned to the native speakers. I also checked the automatic translation logs (WPML > translation mgt > tools > automatic translation usage reports) and found that most of those products were submitted to manual translation in the last couple of days. 1) we did not do that, and 2) why would that be in the automatic translation log?
We only know this about products, because we started the process with the native speakers with a small batch of products. Other page types have not been processed yet.
We are mystified by what is happening here. Do you have an idea what might cause this?
I will let you know as soon as access is granted and a backup is made.
In the meantime, I will give you two examples of products that we know 100% certain of have had their translations reset to the automatic translation after undergoing a translation edit by the English translator:
- VK WS 04
- IB VL 07
On july 3rd, a new custom field was added to the products ("short description") and the content of the default WooCommerce short description field was transferred to that new custom field for each product between july 3 and 5.
We know everything was fine with the edited translations on june 28th.
We first noticed the translation edits disappeared on monday july 8th, late in the afternoon.
Hi,
a backup has been made, and I have permission to provide you with access. I don't see an option to send you private information, how can I provide you with the account details?
Thank you for the updates. I am enabling the private option for the next reply. Please check and share the site credentials after a full site backup{mandatory}.
What has been happening is this:
- our native speakers/translators were receiving emails for translation tasks, even for tasks not assigned to them. this was confusing, so we disabled all notifications and just send them an email when they can log in and pick up their translation tasks.
- until yesterday, these same native speakers/translators had permission (I wasn't aware, just came across the setting yesterday) to use automatic translation.
Is it possible that this is actually what happened:
- the translator makes her edits and saves the translation
- then receives an email telling her translation tasks are waiting (even though she already carried out those translations)
- she opens up the translation she already did, and clicks on save without making any changes, because she sees it's the same product she translated before.
- this re-opening and saving triggers automatic translation to overwrite the translations made by the translator.
Is this possible?
I am pretty confident at this point that somehow, automatic translations are being triggered without any of us taking a conscious action to do so. Because I see translation tasks sent out this week on 8,9,10 july. I'm 100% positive that none of us knowingly sent out a translation task.
Thank you for the details. Please check the attached images. A few of the pages/post translations are still in *Needs Translation/Update* or *In Progress* status. So most probably that is why the translators are getting notifications.
Normally the Advanced Translation Editor will have translation memory and it will not be lost if we assign the translation of Post again for translation to a local translator. Just to make sure, hope you are following the steps suggested here while sending a translation to a local translator.
If you are still facing the issues, please share a screencast for the easiness and clear understanding. It will help us a lot in our internal discussion.
Hello Bigul,
I realize this is a complex issue. But please try to focus on the products I referred to at the beginning:
- VK WS 04
- IB VL 07
If we tackle those, the others will be resolved as well. The screenshots you send are of different products/pages in different stages of translation, they are not at all relevant to the issue at hand.
Yes, I am using the proper procedure to send a translation to a translator, just as described in the documentation you refer to.
I don't know how to create a screencast for what I've described. I've tried to explain it as clearly as I can.
We are in the process of creating a staging copy of the site, that will allow you and me to test more freely. I will let you know as soon as it's ready.
My best guess is:
1. the added field may have triggered something. But how can updating a product trigger a new automatic translation when automatic translation is not active?
2. the translators' initial permission to use automatic translation was inadvertently used when re-opening and re-saving their translations.
3. it's a bug.
Can you explain to me how manual translation tasks end up in the automatic translation log? And can you explain to me how those manual translation tasks were created when none of us created them?
I expect that you cannot (or you would have already), that is why I'm thinking bug...
Thank you for the feedback. It would be great if you could create a staging site on the same server. So we can troubleshoot the issue without affecting the live site.
I have a doubt. Now you have selected the *Translate What You Choose* option in WPML>>Settings>>Translation Mode. Therefore the translations will not trigger automatically. Have you changed it recently?
Normally when we make a change in the original language post, the status of its translations will be changed to *Needs Update*. But WPML will not translate the posts automatically in the *Translate What You Choose* mode.
A new translation job (per language) will be created for each Post when we send it for translation again. The translation statuses (like Completed, In Progress, Pending for review, Needs Update, etc..) will be similar for each translation job (either manual or automatic).
Also, we will not have access to *Translation Jobs* (WPML>>Translation Management>>Jobs) if the *Translate Everything Automatically* option is activated in WPML>>Settings>>Translation Mode.
Hi Bigul,
the staging site is now live.
You can log in on this URL: hidden link
The account details are the same as what I've sent you earlier.
As for your questions:
- We have "translate what you choose" active. That is correct. That has been the case since we started. This is intended, as otherwise translations edited by our native speakers would be overwritten whenever we make a change to the original Dutch page.
- The way I translate automatically, is by going to Translation management, selecting (for example) all products, and then selecting "translate automatically" instead of appointing it to a translator.
- Yet still, something triggers translating automatically. Even though I (or anyone else on the site) have not made a conscious action to do so.
Thank you for the staging site and details. We started to debug it. Just to confirm, we can reproduce the issue by following these steps, am I correct?
1) Create a Product
2) Visit WPML>>Translation Management Dashboard
3) Select the Product and translate it automatically to secondary languages
4) Refresh the page
5) Select the Product again and send it for translation to Local Translators
6) Login as Local Translator
7) Visit WPML>>Translations queue, review and update the Product translation
8) Login as admin user
9) Update the Product in the original language after a minor edit in the content
The process you describe is the way we did it. Whether what you describe in steps 8/9 is the cause, I don't know. I do agree that it is most likely, as we first discovered these issues the first work day after that implementation was done.
