Background of the issue:
I am trying to make changes to a page in the primary language (English) using Divi 5 and the WP Editor. I expect the French and German pages to remain unchanged. Link to a page where the issue can be seen: hidden link
Symptoms:
When saving a change to a page in English using Divi 5 and the WP Editor, the new English content is saved over the translated pages in all languages (DE and FR). This issue did not occur with Divi 4.
Questions:
Why does saving a change in the primary language overwrite content in alternate languages?
How can I prevent the English content from overwriting the translated pages when using Divi 5?
Divi 5 is still in an Alpha version. Our developers are preparing the needed foreseen changes in Divi 5. I'm consulting our second-tier supporters whether in the current state of things we can move on and provide a workaround for the problem you are experiencing with Divi 5. I'll update you here once I have their reply.
Thanks, @Itamar! We know that Divi is still in Alpha and are just hoping there is a workaround or fix we can apply on our end to get it to work properly, even if it's ugly. We appreciate any information available 🙂
Our second-tier supporter said that we need to replicate this issue on a fresh WordPress installation. Then I'll be able to escalate it to our compatibility team. For this, I created a test website with a clean WordPress install. You can access it through this link:
hidden link
With this link, you'll be directly logged in.
Could you please install Divi 5 and see if the issue is replicable on a clean WordPress installation?
Please configure WPML as set on your site (just the basic configurations needed to replicate the issue are enough).
Please also make sure that you are installing the latest version of Divi 5.
When everything is finished and you can replicate the problem, please let us know.
Important! Do not import your site to the test site. We must replicate the problem on a fresh, clean WordPress installation.
Okay, I installed the bare minimum stuff to run the site and imported a few pages - I got the issue to happen:
I edited this page in English:
URL = hidden link
Edit URL = hidden link
Revision = hidden link
I did not change the language pages, just the EN page. But if we look at FR:
URL = hidden link
Edit URL = hidden link
Revision = hidden link
You can see a revision was created roughly at the same timestamp as the one in English (only a couple seconds difference in the timestamp) and if you view the revision, you can see that all the correct FR language (on the left) was changed to EN (right).
I've just updated Divi 5 on the sandbox site, since it had an update.
In any case, we’ve tried to reproduce the issue you described, but have been unable to replicate the behavior. Here’s a summary of the steps we followed during our testing:
1. We created a new page in English using the Divi builder (named “Nigel”).
2. We then added a French translation manually using the WordPress editor (named “Nigelle”), just as you seem to be doing on your site. We did not use WPML’s Translation Editors.
3. We returned to the original English page, made some edits, and saved the changes.
4. Finally, we checked the French version to see if the English content had overwritten it—but it remained intact and unaffected.
Based on these steps, the issue could not be reproduced on our end.
To assist you further, could you please provide exact step-by-step instructions to help us trigger the problem? If possible, please also let us know:
A. Whether the affected pages were created from scratch or imported.
B. Whether any custom code or plugins might be interacting with WPML or Divi.
It seems to affect old pages rather than new pages.
Old pages (in alternative languages) often have the error at the top that says:
"Warning: You are about to edit your translation using the standard WordPress editor but your site is configured to use the WPML Translation Editor. Any edits you do here will be lost if you later open it in the WPML Translation Editor."
However, all pages have been set to using the standard WordPress editor, so this error shouldn't happen. When we do see it is when the content appears to be overwritten.
I imported pages from our site because they have content on them, but I did not include any of our custom child theme or any plugins, etc. Just the pages.
I did so because I had found that, in the database, most of the pages said they were last using the WPML translator when that was not the case. So I tried to manually change it for all pages to set them to the native WP Editor to see if that would fix the issue - but it did not help. I continued to see the error on the back end in the admin when editing a page, without using the Divi visual builder.
There must be something specific about the pages that cause this issue - I cannot get the issue to happen on a brand new page created in the demo environment. It only happens with our pages.
A. Whether the affected pages were created from scratch or imported
Imported, after I couldn't get a new page to show the issue (sorry, I thought I had been more clear there)
B. Whether any custom code or plugins might be interacting with WPML or Divi.
I'm not sure how it could be custom code or plugins because it happens with an imported page in the demo environment, when I did not upload anything other than Divi 5. The issue could be with Divi but I'm not sure how it would be.
On the sandbox site with your imported pages, I'm unable to replicate the issue when updating the English page; it overwrites the content in the French page with English. Please see a video that I recorded while trying it.
hidden link
1. Was I following the correct steps to replicate the issue on the sandbox site?
2. Does this problem only occur on your site and not on the sandbox site?
3. Can you please record a video like I recorded and show me the steps you're taking?
You can use the free online screencast service Komodo - hidden link.
4. What is your final aim? Is it translating the Divi 5 pages manually or with WPML's Advanced Translation Editor?
If the problem only occurs on your site, we may want to check the site's configuration. We may also want to take a copy of it to debug things on our servers. So if needed, please allow me to take a copy of your site. To achieve this, I need to install a plugin like Duplicator or All-in-One Migration. Please let me know if you agree. I'm enabling a private message for the following reply. Privacy and Security Policy
We have strict policies regarding privacy and access to your information. Please see: https://wpml.org/purchase/support-policy/privacy-and-security-when-providing-debug-information-for-support/ **IMPORTANT**
- - Please back up the site files and database before providing us access. --
-- If you have a staging site where the problem can be reproduced, it is better to share access to the staging site.--
I can't give access to our sites very easily - our security team does not allow it.
I tried to capture video of the issue as it happened, but Komodo is having issues and keeps returning 500 errors.
I did get it to happen again, though, on this page:
hidden link
This revision shows the change page-wide from DE to EN: hidden link
It was caused by this EN revision: hidden link
------ Reproduced in New Page ------
I was able to reproduce it again on brand new page, one that was not imported but created from scratch.
hidden link hidden link hidden link
I created the pages in the above order, translating them manually with the WP Editor and the Divi Builder. I confirmed that each page was in its correct language before moving forward.
Step 1)
In a new tab, load one of the language edit admin pages (DE or FR).
Click to edit the page in Divi Builder, make a small change, save and close the page.
Leave the tab open to the admin edit page.
Step 2)
In a new tab, open up the English page admin edit page.
From there, click to Edit the page in the Divi Builder.
Step 3)
Make a change to the English page in the Divi Builder and save it.
Leave the Divi builder open after saving and immediately refresh the other tab which has the alternate language admin edit screen open.
Step 4)
Note there is a new revision that shouldn't be there.
Inspecting the page or revision shows that it was changed to English language.
This is an example of the extra revision overwriting french with english. hidden link
The issue happens the most reliably when you save one page and then the other, very quickly. I suspect there is something getting mixed up in the POST action with the save data. If you save the pages too closely together or leave one open while you work on another, the problem presents itself.
Since the issue for me happens on the WP native edit screen open, while using Divi, I can't say for sure this is a Divi problem.
Thanks for providing the steps to replicate the issue with a new page. However, I'm sorry, but even with the steps you provided, I'm unable to replicate the problem. You can see my test page here:
English: hidden link
French: hidden link
French revision: hidden link
The change I made was when I first translated the page into French. Please see the attached screenshot. I need to mention that when I translate page-builders pages, I first duplicate them into the other language and then translate them independently as described in our guide here:https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/using-different-translation-editors-for-different-pages/. Please see section 3.2. This is the correct way to work when using this method of translation.
Moreover, your description of the steps to replicate the issue sounds to me like a workflow prone to cause problems like this, which I'm unsure is related to either Divi or WPML, but to WordPress itself. I'd suggest working in an ordered process without leaving other tabs open. (At least not tabs of the same page in different states, versions, and languages.)
