[Waiting for user feedback] I can't add a new language because the request takes more than 60 seconds

Hi Paloa.

I understand you'd like me to add this language the normal way.

As explained,I tested your solution on our staging environment: no cache, no WooCommerce enabled.
It just doesn't work: I still get an error (cf screenshot) and the language is not added.

While I understand there's no issue on your side when you test it on minimal environment, I must say I'm looking for a *consistent* way to proceed to language addition , because this will be required again in the future.

That's why we use WPML: to translate our website, and add more languages. So it must work.

Anyway, shutting down the shop is not a graceful way to manage a website.
In this case, it's actually not graful at all since WooCommerce is required to run out theme. If WooCommerce is disabled, the website is down.
Not to mention, I also need to deactivate several WooCommece dependant plugins before being able to disable WooCommerce.

Degrade a website to run a plugins function is just not professional. WPML is a professional plugin, we pay for it. I think we can expect a professional behavior.

A standard request that takes over a minute *is* far from optimal.
Or if it's absolutely required, there must be ways to run it wihout issues.
Many operations in WordPress (such as WPML content updates - see attached) do take more that a minute, and still won't end up with a 5xx error).
So why is it different when I add a new language?

For now, all I know is that your solution doesn't work on our hosting environment, which means all the WPML's requirements.
When it breaks, (on a database on which this country has never been added), the only message I get is: "Error: data not saved".

So no 5xx error here but...
- I don't know what went wrong
- I get no explanation about the step that went wrong - I get no logs
- I don't know if the database is damaged
- I actually don't even know what it takes to add a language (besides uploading translations), so have no idea of where it failed. Plus

If you're not the person who can fix it, I totally understand.
But then please hand over this issue to somebody who does.

It's been more that I month we're discussing this issue. We really need to add this langage now.

I hope you understand.

Thanks

I'm still looking for a way to share this test environment.

In the meantime, could you please detail what are the steps required, code wise, to create a language, besides downloading translation files? I hardly believe this takes so much time.

Thanks.

Could you please detail what are the steps required, code wise, to create a language, besides downloading translation files?

You don't understand my question.

I'm just asking what it takes to add a language from the code perspective. What tasks accomplish the WPML code to add a language to the current installation.

I would just like to understand what takes so long.

Because the only information we get during the process is the message about retrieving the translation files.
Translation files are very lightweight, I can't believe that's what takes so long.

Hi,

Since the ticket is very long, I feel the need to gather what's been said.

I need to add a language to my website, hosted behind CloudFront, with a 60 seconds timeout limitation, that can't be changed.
I have added several language to our website since 2018, among which some were added last year. So quite recently.

During my tests, I understood the following:

1. Adding a custom language takes longer that a standard language, but in our case, still takes over a minute.

2. I tried to add Brazilian as custom language, and it would fail. After exporting a DB and trying it from a minimal environment (vanilla WordPress + this DB), it would still fail, while adding another, different custom language wouldn't. Then I realized Brazilian was offered in standard languages. Then, adding the standard Brazilian would work locally. But still takes more than 1 minute

3. Disabling WooCommerce could reduce the time needed to add a language. But in my case it's not possible, since my custom theme needs WPML, and WooCommece relies on add-ons. It's a long process, degrades the user experience... I can't conceive your only suggestion to addd a language is to alter the website's behavior

It's been 2 months I need to add this language.

- I understand that, during the language creation process, translations files are dowloaded... But that's all I know and can't conceived downloading translation files take so long. When it fails, I get no message besides timeout. I can't find any log regarding this issue. So I asked what are the steps included in the language creation process, just to try figuring out what's going on.

- I asked if you could offer a command line method (not limited by CloudFront). Unless you understand what takes so long an can reduce it, or process it with a method not limited by requests timeout, I can't think of another solution to create more language.

Thanks for coming up with a solution.

Best Regards,