we have the problem, that after translating an article, some days later the untranslated body text reappears in the original language, whereas headline and excerpt stay consistent. This only happens sometimes and is not understandable to us.
It might be related to changes in the original (untranslated) post, as revisions show that both version changed at the same time.
When we go back to a correct revision and save, WP does a duplicate of the whole article and stil shows the wrong version.
Meanwhile this ticket is attended by one of my colleagues, I'll recommend trying the following:
IMPORTANT: Take full backup of your website and database beforehand. It is highly advised to try these in a staging/dev site first, so your live website isn't compromised.
- Deactivate all plugins except WPML and its addons and check for the issue.
- Switch to a standard WordPress theme like 2024.
- Clear all caches.
- Check with a new test page first and if it works fine, then try with one of your existing pages.
If till this point everything works fine, then:
- Activate each plugin one-by-one, while keeping check on the issue after a plugin is activated. This way you'll be able to pinpoint a plugin having a conflict (or problem), if any.
- Finally switch to your current theme.
Please let us know your findings and we'll try our best to help you further on the matter.
does this problem seem familiar to you? The same thing still happens and our programmer says there is nothing he can do about it: Translated articles show the untranslated bodytext, when the original (untranslated) article has been updated.
Going back to a good version in revisions has no effect. Instead, a duplicate article is created.
So, the question remains: when can we count on a review on our problem?
We occasionally get similar reports, but they prove very elusive when it comes to determining the cause.
If you are willing I would like to take a closer look at how your site is set up, particularly with regard to the content where the translations are being overwritten.
It is most likely connected to when you make a change to the original post, and ideally we would be able to determine the specific steps that trigger the problem so that it can be reproduced and debugged.
Is it possible to get access to a staging copy of the site? (I don't want to work on your production server.)
Let me mark your next reply as private so that I can get log-in credentials from you—you may want to create a temporary admin user for me to use that you can later delete. And be sure to have a current backup of your site.
I logged in to review your settings and familiarise myself with your site (I haven't been making any changes).
Looking at the post revisions for the first of the links you shared, and those of the German original, I can see that—yes—the English content was replaced with German content at the same time as an update to the German original occurred.
This would only be expected if you were using Automatic Translation, or if the translated post was a duplicate of the original that had been edited independently.
That doesn't appear to be the case, but could it have been before?
Could you please describe your workflow for creating content in German and then translating to English, including details of when the content is published?
We have identified a workflow where it can happen that the translated content can be overwritten with the original if making translations and editing them with the WordPress editor, but that only occurs if you make a draft post and duplicate to the secondary language.
"We have identified a workflow where it can happen that the translated content can be overwritten with the original if making translations and editing them with the WordPress editor, but that only occurs if you make a draft post and duplicate to the secondary language."
-> We always translate after the original article has been published (no drafts).
We create new articles via the WP Dashboard - Post - Add new Post.
When this is published, the translation will be created later:
1. Select translation in the backend / dashboard / all posts / Click on the ‘+’ next to the chosen article in source language
2. Scroll down and ‘Copy content from [source language]’
3. Add in the target language translation carefully
4. Make sure to ‘Save draft’ as you go - particularly every time you leave the page
5. Replace tags with the target language, add the featured image and excerpt
6. Publish oder Schedule article
I hope I was able to clarify this.
Best regards
Uta
Am I right in thinking some of the content is published in English, then translated to German, and some of it is published in German, then translated to English?
Is there a pattern about which of these directions produces the occasional problem?
This is very basic, but is it possible that some of your authors press the wrong button?
In the screenshot (from my site) there is a button to Copy and there is a button to Overwrite.
The Overwrite button will link the translation to the original, and changes in the original will overwrite whatever edits have been made to the translation.
Is it possible occasionally someone uses the wrong button?
(The issue is intermittent and only happens sometimes; computers tend to be predictable and consistent, which is why I'm looking at things that may account for the problem only happening sometimes.)
the problem most often occurs when German text is translated into English. So it's the translated text that causes the problem.
What speaks against the ‘wrong button’ theory is that the translatet texts are correctly visible on the day of publication. The swap of the body text back into the original language only succeeds at a later date when the original text has been edited.
It's difficult to come up with a scenario to explain what happens, to be sure.
One thing we do know—when this occurs—is the date and time it happens. We can see that from the post revisions.
Could you add an activity logger plugin to your site to record the activities that occur. The next time the problem happens, it may be possible to cross-check the time the content is overwritten according to the post revisions with entries in the activity log to see that some event took place immediately prior which might explain it.
(I don't have a particular recommendation, there are "Activity Log", "WP Activity Log", "Simple History" and others.)
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