[Escalated to 2nd Tier] 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,

Hi,
I gave a test to the method you offered.
I'm afraid, It did not make the process any faster. The process is still very, very long.

On the other hand, if I disable all the plugins, besides WPML SitePress Multilingual, then it will be much faster. Adding a language then takes less than 3 seconds.

So the issue seems related to the plugins, or a least some of them.

We have a lot of plugins. I couldn't identify all the culprits

String translations seems to slow things dow siginificantly, but also doesnt' seem to be the only culprit. I need to test more to identify the plugins responsible.

Sorry Paola but I don't get your point here.

I assume you suggest using this plugin: hidden link
Which has not been updated for over 3 years.

Now, if I disable the WPML Multingual CMS plugin I will be able to:
1. Switch the language from the General settings, then move the language to the language I want to add. This is always very fast. As I checked and explained earlier, that's not what slows down the process.
2. Move back to English
3. Re-activate WPML Multilingual CMS
4. Add the language
>> But as identified, it will still be very slow, and won't solve my issue.
Whatever this check conflicts does, it won't help me skipping CloudFront limitations.

The issue is generic.
Adding a language with several plugins activated seems to dramatically slow down the process.
You can't ask an administrator to disable all its plugins to add a language.

While I can agree adding a language is not a day to day task, it's not either a major maintenance task, and should not require so much effort as:

0. Backup the database and put the website under maintenance mode and cut the public trafic during the down time
1. Disable all the addon plugins (ex: WooCommerce shipping rate, to be able to disable the "WooCommerce" parent plugin afterwards
2. Disable all the parent plugins, excet WPML Mulitlingual CMS
3. Go to WPML > Settings > Add language > Select the language > Validate > Wait
4. Hide the language until it's actually ready for publication
5. Edit the language settings > Customize the language names
6. Reactivate the parent plugins
7. Reactivate the addon plugins
8. Check that everything's fine
9. Re-enable public trafic

Then the remaining tasks (I assume, related to strings and plugins content inventory),can be run in the background, without affecting the users.

That's such a process!

If this is meant to be a long task for big websites (while ours is actually not so big...), please just provide us with a shell process, to make the same actions, without being held by the frontend limitations.

Guys, you've been the most popular and widespread multilingual plugin for WordPress.
We've been trusting you for years, and we have relied on your solution since.
Please provide us with the means to continue doing our work with your plugin serenely.
That's what serious plugins do.

Thanks

Thanks, looking forward to your feedback.

Best Regards,