[Resolved] Split: Problems after changing default language

Hello,

I created this ticket, so we can sort the default language change issues, before addressing the other ones. I think this way, we can work more efficiently. I will paste here, the issues you described you were facing after changing the default language:

1. hidden link I dont have choice to update french translation in page, but I also cannot edit french translation because it jump to english.
French is now your default language. If you go to the "Pages" tab, please make sure to select French as the language in the top bar. After that, you can simply hover each page and click on Edit. See image 01.

2. hidden link all porfolio disapear.
I checked your website, and there are Portfolio Items in English. Since French is now the default language, all other translations were lost, since they were made from English to other secondary languages. If you select "English" in the top bar, you should find them. See image 02.

3. hidden link Sync menu become empty.
First, you need to create the menus in your default language, to sync them. Since you changed your default language, that is a necessary step.

4. hidden link Service menu in french showing no sense text.
By default, WordPress uses the page name as the text for the menu items. I checked your pages, and they have the same name as the pages, as expected (see image 03). Due to the language change, I recommend you erase all existing menus, and create them in French, from scratch. Since it seems you want to adjust the menu items, I advise you translate your menus using the Fully Customizable option described here:
https://wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/translating-menus/#fully-custom-create-menus-manually

5. Name of the company is Royal Bitume, but translator change it often for Bitume Royal or Royal asphalte.
That's due to the automatic translation. You can adjust that manually, in every content. To do that, simply edit a translation, by clicking on the pencil icon that's shown in the "Pages" or "Posts" tab. See image 04.

6. hidden link in french all disapear.
Again, that's due to the default language change. Please check the portfolio in English, in your backend by changing the language in the top bar, and translate the portfolios to French, as described in item 2.

Please note, that due to the language change, many translations are gone. That's because most of your content was translated from English to other languages, which is not the case anymore. I advise you check for every post type, if they have existing content by changing the language in the top bar.

I insist, that if you find any new issues, or want to discuss other subjects, please create a new tickets to do so. It is against our policy and not effective, to handle multiple issues simultaneously.

#1
I checked it again, and when editing with Elementor, I see the French content. I recorded a video showing:
hidden link

If that's not what you see, can you please send me a screen recording showing what's going on?

#2
The thing is, there were no translations from French, the current default language, to the other languages, but from English. That's why you need to create them. If you didn't create a backup, it's more complex to recover the translations from English, we would have to reset it back to English and check paragraph per paragraph in the Translation Editor, to check if they were saved in the Translation Memory.

Here's a more detailed explanation of what translation memory is:
https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/how-wpml-keeps-track-of-your-translations/

#3
As I stated in the previous reply, the translations from French to other languages never existed in the first place, that's why it has to be recreated. As a translation plugin WPML handles the content as translations connected to the original elements.

#4
The menus that are showing, are probably saved in the Cache of your website, or Elementor kept them as translations. It's better to recreate them using one of the methods I showed.

I explicitly warned you in the other ticket:
"Changing the default language, won't change what will show in Google Results. I don't really recommend you do that, since it has a massive impact on how Google sees your content, can lead to problems and won't get you to your desired result. If you wish to do that, please ensure to have a full backup of your website."
https://wpml.org/forums/topic/split-change-default-language-and-seo/

I'm sorry that it's being troublesome to deal with the default language switch. Perhaps you can get in touch with your hosting provider, in case you don't have a backup, to check if they have some backup that can save you work and keep the website in English.

#5
Thanks for sharing. We do have the Glossary feature, which solves this kind of issues:
https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/advanced-translation-editor/how-to-create-and-manage-glossary-entries/

Please check it, I think it might help you when translating your company name in the future.

#6
You can create your content in any Language. By chaning the language in the top bar, let's say to Arabic and click on "New post" that new entry will be in Arabic and can then be translated as you prefer.

In your case, since the content was created originally in English and translated from that language, all content that is in French, will have to be translated.
___

Again, I'm sorry that your having extra work due to the language change.

In general, all the items we are discussing, point to the same issue: not having translations from French. Again, since the content wasn't translated from French, these translations still need to be done.

#1
The translations of the header need to be recreated. Check the original header, in French, make sure the menu is created properly in French, create the translations for the menu, and then translate the header.

#2
Your translations were made from English to other languages. Now, your website is in French and it has to be translated from French. I know it can be a hassle, but as I said, if the translations do not exist from French, they must be created.

#3
The translation was from English to French, right? Now you have to do the other way around, translating from French to English. Unfortunately, in this case it's best to recreate the menu, I don't really see any other option.

#4
One option, would be to restore the backup in a separate test website and copy the translated content from there, to create the translations from French. It's a bit of extra work, but can save resources and time.

#5
Again, you translated from English, now the translations are from French. It's a whole new set of words and sentences that have to be translated, a whole new language.

Hello,

Let's try to see if it works. Can you please send me a package with the backup from before? I want to investigate this option you mentioned: leave the content in English, with its translations, but make WPML with French language as a default, keeping the content as it is.

There is a drawback: the original content, even with French as a default, will still be originally in English, in the admin panel. Let's see if it works. It really depends on how themes and plugins store that information.

If you can't send a package, please restore this website on a test domain or subdomain, so I can directly check. Let me know how you wish to send it, so I can activate the necessary fields.