ACF: Field type 'taxonomy' translation option 'copy' not working

This is the technical support forum for WPML - the multilingual WordPress plugin.

Everyone can read, but only WPML clients can post here. WPML team is replying on the forum 6 days per week, 22 hours per day.

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
-	8:00 – 13:00	9:00 – 13:00	9:00 – 13:00	8:00 – 12:00	8:00 – 12:00	-
-	14:00 – 17:00	14:00 – 18:00	14:00 – 18:00	13:00 – 17:00	13:00 – 17:00	-

Supporter timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)

This topic contains 6 replies, has 2 voices.

Last updated by Bruno Kos 3 years, 1 month ago.

Assisted by: Bruno Kos.

Author	Posts
February 22, 2021 at 2:11 pm #8145557
ingoZ	I use the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) Plugin in conjunction with the WPML plugin. In the ACF Plugin I have added a 'taxonomy' field as checkbox options to another already existing taxonomy. Basicly, I have a taxonomy 'artist' and to its terms I add an ACF field of the type 'taxonomy' which I have called 'artist_artwork_types' that allows to select the terms from another taxonomy called 'artwork_type'. This allows me to connect 'artist' terms with 'artwork_type' terms. The ACF 'taxonomy' field is set to return the ID of the selected 'artwork_type' terms. My desired translation behavior is: I select the 'artwork_type' terms in the main language (English) and it is copied to the secondary language (German) so I do not have to set it in each language individually. I have set the WPML term translation option for the field 'artist_artwork_types' to 'copy' and the 'artwork_type' terms themselves are connected with their translations in both languages. I had assumed that with WPML the translated 'artist' term would show in the 'artist_artwork_types' field the translated 'artwork_type' terms. However, it does not work, there are no terms selected in the translation (see attached screenshot). Does the WPML plugin not work with the 'taxonomy' field? How can I solve this?
February 23, 2021 at 9:26 am #8152057
Bruno Kos Supporter Languages: English (English ) German (Deutsch ) French (Français ) Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)	Hi, Thank you for contacting WPML support! hidden link hello@wpml.org R7Xjz8YFMu Can you maybe show me this here? I assume only few categories should be enough to show this. I already installed all the necessary plugins, if you see the problem here let me know and how I can reproduce myself. Regards, Bruno Kos
February 23, 2021 at 10:54 am #8152933
ingoZ	Thank you for setting up the test site. Yes, I could replicate the error there. Please take a look at Categories 'Cat 1' or 'Cat 2'. hidden link I have added the ACF field with type 'taxonomy' called 'category_related_tag' to the categories. In the default language English I have selected to 'category_related_tag'. While this related term selection should be copied to the secondary languages, you can see that the selection is missing in the secondary languages like German. You can see what I mean?
February 23, 2021 at 12:38 pm #8153781
Bruno Kos Supporter Languages: English (English ) German (Deutsch ) French (Français ) Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)	Hi, I see - let me know if missed something, this is what I understood: - Create a new post category, add some Category Related Tag and assign to this category - Translate category through Taxonomy Translation - Category Related Tag will remain empty on category translation I am not sure why this works (or doesn't work) this way, so I escalated to our 2nd tier team and may take some debugging time, I'll get back to you as soon as I have any news or questions for you. Regards, Bruno Kos
February 23, 2021 at 6:24 pm #8156801
ingoZ	No, you misunderstood, that's not the issue. Lets say both the category in both languages and the tag in both languages already exists. Just check out the category in English 'Cat 1 en'. You can see I have selected the tag 'Tag 1 en' but this selection is not copied to German 'Cat 2 de' as I have set in the WPML options for the field. 'Cat 1 de' should have the copied the selection its English original, so it should have the tag 'Tag 1 de' but its empy (and also you can not choose any tag there, which would be desired but only if it copied the selection from its English original). See the screenshot attached.
February 24, 2021 at 10:40 am #8162245
Bruno Kos Supporter Languages: English (English ) German (Deutsch ) French (Français ) Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)	Hi, Lets say both the category in both languages and the tag in both languages already exists. But the thing is that they don't 🙂 Everything fails even in the first step, because when I create translation of the category, Category Related Tag will remain empty. Which means that even if you create these Tags for translated category, WPML cannot know which are originals and how to synchronize them then. Would you agree with me? So the problem I see is that Category Related Tags don't copy to translations at all, something which I'm not sure how it should work, that's why I asked our 2nd tier for further suggestions and checks. Regards, Bruno Kos
February 25, 2021 at 3:02 pm #8173547
Bruno Kos Supporter Languages: English (English ) German (Deutsch ) French (Français ) Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)	Hi, Our 2nd tier team worked on this and escalated this case for development. Because as it seems, right now the copy does not do what it is expected to do (it copies the same ID instead of matching them with translations), however it is very rare scenario to add custom ACF field taxonomies to already existing taxonomies and copy them across. So I'm not sure if or when will this be handled. You could set them to translate and then translate the meta information by matching the original category related tags and their translations (see image). However this can be a very cumbersome process especially if there are multiple tags per category. So as it turns out the only way to easily manage this is to update translated categories manually. Unfortunately it will not work in any other way. Regards, Bruno Kos