[Gelöst] WPBakery Image Grid: ATE generates different translation packages on identical installations (Custom...

Hi WPML Team,

I believe I have finally isolated the issue and can reproduce a very strange behavior.

I have two installations that originally started from the exact same Akeeba Backup clone, which I created specifically for your investigation. The only relevant difference is the hosting environment:

Live: STRATO
Staging: ALL-INKL

Both installations use:

- The same WPML version
- The same Total Theme version
- The same WPBakery version
- The same custom XML configuration:

```
<wpml-config>
<shortcodes>
<shortcode>
<tag>vcex_image_grid</tag>
<attributes>
<attribute type="media-ids">image_ids</attribute>
</attributes>
</shortcode>
</shortcodes>
</wpml-config>
```

The WPBakery shortcode contains the custom_links attribute on both installations, for example:custom_links="/anwendungsbeispiele-induktivstauchen/,/anwendungsbeispiele-rundkneten/,..."The links are definitely stored inside the page content on both sites. However, ATE (Advanced Translation Editor) generates completely different translation packages.

Live (STRATO):
- ATE extracts:
- Media
- Alt Text

But it does NOT create a "Custom Links" section.

As a result, the links cannot be translated, and the frontend continues linking to the German pages.

Staging (ALL-INKL):
- ATE extracts:
- Custom Links
- But NO Media / Alt Text.

The links are available for translation.

This means that ATE creates two completely different translation packages, even though both installations contain the exact same WPBakery shortcode.During a previous support session, one of your colleagues mentioned: "I made some changes to how media is handled."

Could you please explain exactly what was changed? It appears that these changes might affect how the translation package is generated.

Additional finding:
While investigating this issue, I also noticed that WPBakery serializes the Custom Links field differently depending on whether there are empty lines after the last link.

For example:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

is serialized differently than:

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
[empty line]

Could you please look into why the hosting environment or server configuration causes ATE to parse the shortcodes so differently? Do I need a different XML configuration? Why is ATE not doing what it is supposed to do?

I really hope we can finish this job this century... 🙄

Best regards,

Dirk

P.S. Unfortunately, after further testing, the ATE stopped showing the Custom Links on the staging environment as well. Even after restoring the original empty lines and trailing commas in the custom_links field, the links did not reappear. This suggests that the issue is related to the translation package or job state rather than the shortcode content alone.