[Resolved] Pages created with Elementor are not being translated
This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.
Problem: The client is experiencing issues with translations not appearing correctly on their website. Some pages are partially translated, while others are not translating at all, even after manual retranslation. The client suspects emojis might be causing issues on some pages, and there are also problems with the translation of the footer template and the shop page title.
Solution: We have identified that the problem is related to the database collation settings. To resolve this issue, we recommend the following steps: 1. Perform a backup of your database to ensure you can restore your site if necessary. 2. Run the following SQL queries in your database panel:
ALTER TABLE wp_icl_strings CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci;
ALTER TABLE wp_icl_string_translations CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci;
3. After running these queries, make some changes to the pages (you can bulk update them) and send them again for translation. If you're not comfortable running these queries, we can assist you, but please ensure you have a full backup of your database before proceeding.
This is so weird and getting weirder and weirder π
About cache:
- I cleared the WPML cache & disabled the cache plugin. Some pages are now translated (like the About page) where they were not before. I had to manually restart the translation though.
- Some pages are still not translating (like the home page) but I suspect that's because of the emoji
- Some "pages" are still not fully translated despite being retranslated by hand such as my footer (it's an Elementor template called Main Footer (3 columns)). The menus in it are translated, but not the text/titles.
- Some pages are not translating at all despite retranslating them by hand (with the automatic setting) such as this one: hidden link
- The shop page has the right title, the right URL but is still showing "boutique" in the title: hidden link
About images:
- I did not change anything memory related π
All the 3 issue you mention here are related to Elementor.
I tried to deactivate it on the copy and the shop page correctly displays "shop" hidden link
Perhaps are you using an image here?
As for the other 2 pages, if I open the Translation Editor when Elementor is active, it only shows some parts of the text.
If I disable it and update the pages, then I see in the Translation Editor ALL the content (which is not translated, so that explains why you don't see it).
However, WPML and Elementor should be compatible, so I'll need to further investigate. Do you use any kind of special template, or maybe something AI generated? I see the option in the Elementor editor.
I don't think I use anything special. I'm using only basic Elementor and Elementor Pro blocks. I don't have any other plugin.
The only time I used AI is to create some very basic CSS for some elements (to change the color or the size if I remember correctly).
I escalated the ticket and we're going to debug further. This is not a compatibility issue (we test Elementor with every release) so it's possible that solving this could solve the emoji issue as well.
We've found the issue is with database collation. Fixing it shoudl also solve the emoji issue.
Please try this
- do a backup of the database
- in the database panel, run these queries
ALTER TABLE wor1073_icl_strings CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci;
ALTER TABLE wor1073_icl_string_translations CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci;
- then do some change to the pages (you can bulk update them) and send them again for translation
If you're not sure how to run queries I can do it but I'll need to access the database so please do a full backup first.
That should be all, if something is missing please let me know.
From the 2nd tier they told me half of your tables had encoding utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci and the others utf8mb3_general_ci, not sure why, maybe it's due to server migration, plugins, it's hard to tell. Emojis are unicode characters so that's why it lead to conflict.
Thank you for the explanation! I think the only thing missing is the image captions (as in this post hidden link ) which are not translating but I think that's because I don't know how to send them to translation π
Hi! Sorry it took me a few days to work on this last issue. I figured that the article was still written in a classic block setting and that was what blocked the translated content to show up. I think everything is resolved now.
Again, thank you very very much for helping me with all of this. Have a lovely day π
Hi π Me again XD
I asked to have this thread reopened because when I publisheda new blogpost yesterday, it did the same thing : some part of it was translated, some did not.
I figured it was the part with the emoji that were not translated to I run the SQL queries again and sent the post to translation again. It worked then.
Is there a way to have it fixed for all the new blogposts / pages I'll publish in the future? (because having to send the query every time is hardly sustainable as you can imagine!)
