Skip Navigation

This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.

Problem:
The client is experiencing an issue where Hebrew text is not displaying correctly after importing products into WooCommerce; instead of Hebrew characters, question marks (?????) appear.
Solution:
1. Temporarily deactivate WPML and its add-on plugins to check if the issue persists. This helps determine if the problem is related to WPML or the import process itself.
2. If the issue still occurs with WPML deactivated, it might be a database encoding issue. We recommend checking your database settings to ensure it supports Hebrew characters. You can find guidance on this at https://wpml.org/faq/texts-showing-as/.
3. Verify if the issue is specific to Hebrew or affects other languages as well. This can help isolate the problem.
4. Ensure that the import plugin used is compatible with WPML. The issue might be related to the encoding process within the plugin. A similar issue has been reported here: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/product-csv-importer-not-working-when-the-csv-file-contains-chinese-characters/.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, or if the solution seems outdated or irrelevant to your specific case, we highly recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If the problem persists, please open a new support ticket at WPML support forum for further assistance.

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.

No supporters are available to work today on this forum. Feel free to create tickets and we will handle it as soon as we are online. Thank you for your understanding.

This topic contains 8 replies, has 3 voices.

Last updated by Bobby 2 months ago.

Assisted by: Bobby.

Author Posts
July 28, 2024 at 5:12 pm #16012384

shaiR

Background of the issue:
I am trying to import a product in English and Hebrew. I manage to import the product and link between Hebrew and English, but it does not enter the text in Hebrew. Instead of text I get ?????. URL: hidden link

Symptoms:
Instead of text in Hebrew, I get ?????.

Questions:
Why is the Hebrew text not displaying correctly?
How can I fix the issue of Hebrew text showing as ??????

July 29, 2024 at 7:14 am #16013953

Dražen Duvnjak
Supporter

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)

Hello,

thanks for contacting us, while you wait for my colleague to take the case let me try to help.

Please disable wpml plugins and check if the issue still happens, if yes then it could be an issue with your database not supporting those characters. Please check next guide and let me know if you can follow it and if that helps:

- https://wpml.org/faq/texts-showing-as/

Regards,
Drazen

July 29, 2024 at 7:27 am #16014036

shaiR

I have a lot of products on the website in Hebrew. It only happens when I import new products. If I create a new product not by import, there is no problem with the Hebrew.
I can also manually translate or edit the product I imported and it keeps the words in Hebrew. Only when I import does it show up as ????

This is a link to my store in Hebrew:
hidden link

Screenshot 2024-07-29 102309.png
July 29, 2024 at 7:33 am #16014075

shaiR

And my database character encoding is UTF-8.

Screenshot 2024-07-29 103123.png
July 31, 2024 at 10:54 pm #16027149

Bobby
Supporter

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: America/Los_Angeles (GMT-07:00)

Hi there,

Is this happening with any other languages imported other than Hebrew or are they working OK ?

I can see WP All Import is installed, I assume that you are following the steps mentioned in our documentation here:
https://wpml.org/documentation/related-projects/legacy-wpml-all-import/importing-multiple-languages-with-wp-all-import-and-wpml/

Are the products you are importing variable products?

August 1, 2024 at 10:56 am #16029074

shaiR

Only the words in Hebrew are not imported properly. Even in a product in Hebrew if I write the words in English or Spanish it is imported. Only the text in Hebrew becomes ?????

Look at the example: It's a simple product.
hidden link

I don't use WP All Import. I use the WooCommerce importer. But it doesn't matter because the import works well.. only the text in Hebrew becomes ???

Thanks

August 1, 2024 at 9:47 pm #16031409

Bobby
Supporter

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: America/Los_Angeles (GMT-07:00)

Is that plugin "WooCommerce Product CSV Import Suite" ?

What are your results if you temporarily deactivate WPML and its add-on plugins and then import a Hebrew product? Does it import correctly or are you still getting the broken characters?

I believe the issue is not related to WPML as WPML supports the Hebrew language, but rather with the encoding done through the plugin used for the import.

The specific plugin is not officially compatible with WPML, however, I was able to find a similar issue brought up to their team here:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/product-csv-importer-not-working-when-the-csv-file-contains-chinese-characters/

August 2, 2024 at 12:04 am #16031554

shaiR

I don't use an import plugin, I use WooCommerce import. as attached in the file.
I deleted this plugin and imported again and still the text is broken.

Screenshot 2024-08-02 030132.png
August 2, 2024 at 6:22 pm #16034590

Bobby
Supporter

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: America/Los_Angeles (GMT-07:00)

Got it, thank you for the screenshot!

What are your results with the import when WPML is deactivated?

Also, please share the XML file with me to do a test import on a sandbox environment.

shaiR confirmed that the issue was resolved on 2024-08-05 08:42:06.
This ticket is now closed. If you're a WPML client and need related help, please open a new support ticket.