PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string

Overview of the issue

In some situations, when you try to synchronize your ATE translators, you will get a fatal error:

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in …/wp-includes/http.php:671

This happens if your database got corrupted and the WPML_TM_AMS option is missing some key values. This causes ATE to return an error object during the authentication process.

Workaround

This issue will be solved in our next major release WPML 4.5.

If you haven’t started any translation using our Advanced Translation Editor (ATE),you can consider resetting your ATE credentials.

For this, make a full backup of your site before proceeding.

1. Go to WPML → Settings → How To Translate posts and pages, and enable the Classic Translation Editor.
2. Using phpMyAdmin, access your database or use a similar tool that your hosting company provides.
3. Select the database of your website and open wp_options table.
4. Search for the WPML_SITE_ID:ate key and delete it.
5. Then search for the next key, WPML_TM_AMS, and delete it.
6. Go back to WPML → Settings → How To Translate posts and pages and enable and activate the Advanced Translation Editor again.

If you don’t feel comfortable with this procedure or you have already started to translate your content with ATE, please open a ticket in our support forum.