Background of the issue:
When I translate a shortcode in the ATE and save it - it saves and displays content in the correct language (as it should).
However, over time when viewing posts I notice that the translated shortcode content reverts back to the Primary language (English). When I check the translation in the ATE the translated segment is blank.
It seems to be random and not particularly associated with any particular shortcode (we have over 100 throughout our site).
I have also noticed when cloning/pushing our live site to a staging site that ALL shortcode translations disappear from the ATE.
Where can I see this issue on your site?
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I'm not sure it is a WPML issue. Here is what I checked. I edited with Elementor the original English page you gave me as an example.
hidden link
The section you show as problematic has two missing columns. Please see the attached screenshot. If the problem is on the original English page, the shortcodes will obviously be missing in the translations.
What is your comment on this?
Do you agree with me that it is not a WPML issue?
Sidenote: I can see that the Multilingual Tools plugin is active on your site. This plugin is only required when you test or develop WPML-compatible themes and plugins. I suggest you deactivate it, as you can accidentally cause it to overwrite your translations. You can read about this plugin here.
Thanks for getting back and explaining the issue to us. I have checked and seems there is a similar issue reported and the fix is planned for the future.
1) In order to help further with your case can you maybe try to see if any particular steps cause the issue, like maybe resaving / re-translating the page?
2) One more thing you can try is to switch to ATE Gen 3 from the settings icon on the top right when in the ATE editor (un-check use the previous version of ATE), and check if the issue still happens?
Do you have any idea as to when (approximately) the fix is planned?
1) This problem has been happening for 2-3 months now (since we began implementing these widgets with shortcodes). I am suspicious that when the DB is optimized or repaired this happens. However, as mentioned I kept a log for quite some time and there are no patterns that I noticed or apparent causes.
As you can see from the last screenshot, identical segments can be both translated and untranslated in the same post. The same shortcodes can also be translated in one post and not another - they do not seem to be specifically targeted.
I have also noticed that when migrating/pushing the site from Live to Staging that I happens to most shortcode fields - sometimes even all of them end up empty/blank.
2) I constantly switch back to ATE Gen2 because the Gen 3 ATE more often than not won't let me save a translation - even when absolutely 100% ALL SEGMENTS are translated. Even when the progress bar at the bottom says 100% - I normally have to switch back to the Gen 2 in order to save without any issues.
I have just pushed my site from Staging to Live a few days ago and I know 100% that ALL posts we completely translated, now, it appears that on quite a few posts (I haven't checked them all) that segments containing a Glossary Term are now untranslated also.
Do you think this is related? Or is this another issue?
The problem is with shortcodes in deeply nested pages (usually at the grandchild level of a parent page). Reading about this case, I can also tell that it was hard to "catch" and reproduce it. The issue has still been escalated to our developers and will be fixed in future versions of the Advanced Translation Editor. I'm sorry, but I have no ETA for when it will be released.
However, I'm unsure if your case is the same. You wrote, "I am suspicious that when the DB is optimized or repaired, this happens." The known problem occurs in the Advanced Translation Editor.
Please elaborate on why the DB needs to be repaired or optimized.
What tool repairs or optimizes the DB?
Regarding the glossary problem, at this moment, I'm unsure if it is related to the shortcodes issue. We have one known issue with the glossary, but it does not seem to be your case. You can read about it here.
I also suspect the problem with Elementor might be related to the shortcode issue. This is regarding the following thing you wrote. "This is just an annoying thing about Elementor - it does not always display what you see on the frontend correctly in the editor."
If you can find the steps to replicate this problem, it will help a lot in getting things advanced, and I'll be able to escalate it to our second-tier supporters. Or get to the conclusion that it is the known shortcodes issue.
Please note that my weekend is Friday-Saturday, and I'll be able to continue to check this issue and help you on Sunday.
Our shortcodes in question are not in deeply nested pages - only in our posts.
The only reasons I am pointing out the DB optimization and repair is:
1. At the time of keeping a log we had an issue with our database growing and going over our shared hosting quota
2. It was noticed that there were some DB errors and old table formats that needed upgrading and therefore the DB was optimized.
3. 10's of thousands of transients were being created by 2 plugins - The EVents calendar (which we no longer use) and WPML - wpml-i18n-strings
So as the shortcode problem was already occurring and I then proceeded to keep this log, I had noted that when the DB was optimized (and possibly as a co-incidence) that more shortcodes had dropped out of translation memory.
This was a few months ago and since then we have upgraded to a VPS hosting service and have had no issues with DB etc - but still continue to have the translation issue.
For me, the best current example of the issue is the attached screenshot.
The same codes are translated in one part and then not in the other.
It is nothing to do with the groups of three - I have seen this exact same situation happen where 1 of the codes in the group of three is blank with the same shortcode also appearing in further down the post translated correctly.
What tool repairs or optimizes the DB?
Our hosting provider performed this originally and then a developer helped to sort the remianing issues simply using available MySQL tools, maybe WP ROcket was used also to clear transients etc.
Elementor issue - not an issue for me, is like this with a few things and is of no real concern.
Glossary Terms - is a headache. When I push from staging to Live every post with a Glossary term becomes untranslated. It takes a long time OR I have to pay for credits again.
Is this something to do with settings when license is transferred?
Hi, Justin, and thanks for your detailed description.
I investigated the shortcode issue by editing the following post on the staging site. hidden link
Since we don't have the steps to replicate this problem, my only conclusion is that it is caused by the known issue we mentioned. The problem might happen with posts as well as pages. It would be great if you could provide us with the steps to replicate this issue. Then, we will be able to confirm or deny whether it is the same issue. Until then, we will consider it as the same issue. I'll mark this ticket as escalated to our developers and let you know when the fix for this issue will be released.
The glossary issue occurs because the live and staging sites do not share the same translation memory. While moving between them, you probably didn't connect between them. Please see the attached screenshot. Please read the following guide on how to connect between sites.
Sorry, i don't have more info on how to replicate this.
Main points to note when shortcodes seem to disappear:
1) When migrating/cloning the site for a staging site (or when pushing staging to back Live).
2) Slowly over time, they disappear (I only know this for the logs/checks I made) unfortunately with no noticeable process or situation happening that I am aware of.
3) Possibility of happening when optimizing the DB - this happened many months ago though a couple of times and never since - so it could have been a coincidence.
Sorry, I can't be of more help.
Thanks for ht glossary terms fix.
Thanks again and hopefully a good result soon from the developer team.
