[Waiting for user feedback] Translations stuck in "In progress"

We'll wait for an update then, thank you

Dear Bobby,

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation and for locating the cause of the issue with the pages. The analysis regarding the "<-" string being sanitized and corrupting the XLIFF is very clear, and we will apply the workaround on those specific pages. We also appreciate the Loom video demonstration.

However, we need to reiterate that the same "stuck in progress" problem, along with critical errors on saving, also affects ALL of our products. This has been a consistent issue throughout our correspondence and is still unresolved.

To be very clear:

Product Translations are Stuck "In Progress": Just like with the original problematic pages, our product translations remain with the "In corso..." status in the WPML backend even after being fully completed in the Advanced Translation Editor. We are also unable to cancel these stuck translation jobs; they simply remain in that state.

Critical Error on Product Save: When attempting to save any product, we consistently encounter a fatal critical error on the site. We previously provided the full debug log for this specific error, which points to:

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Illegal offset type in isset or empty in /home/customer/www/staging5.almagra.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/sitepress-multilingual-cms/classes/core-abstract-classes/class-wpml-element-translation.php:282
Stack trace includes: woocommerce-multilingual/classes/Synchronization/Manager.php

This error indicates a critical issue within WPML's core translation management (sitepress-multilingual-cms) when synchronizing or processing product data, specifically via WooCommerce Multilingual.

Given that the "<-" string was identified as the culprit for pages, could a similar character or string sanitization issue, or perhaps a data type mismatch, be occurring within our product data (e.g., product descriptions, short descriptions, attributes, or custom fields) that is causing this TypeError and blocking product translations/saves?

The current workaround you provided only addresses pages with that specific arrow string. We need a diagnosis and a solution for the product translation issues, as they are completely blocked by this critical error. Please investigate if the problem with products is related to the same XLIFF corruption logic, or if there's a different underlying conflict with WooCommerce Multilingual that prevents product translations from finalizing and saving.

Thank you for your focused attention on this critical product issue.

We appreciate you testing on our staging environment and confirming that you were able to send a product to translation and that it was delivered.

However, we are still encountering significant problems with products, and it seems our specific use case is at the root of the issue. The problems persist when we attempt to update or translate our existing Italian products to English.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the issues we are facing with products:

Errors when Updating/Saving Existing the English translation of Italian Product:

When we try to update the translation of an existing English product (which was originally created by duplicating the Italian content), we receive a critical error on the site (the same error previously seen, as per the screenshot attached to my last message).

We believe this is directly related to our specific workflow for managing downloadable files. For these products, we use an ACF field called "File Scaricabile" which links to a PDF. This PDF must be different for each language.

The only method we've found to correctly attach a different PDF for the English translation via this ACF field is by duplicating the Italian product first, then editing the duplicate's "File Scaricabile" field.

Our primary goal is to be able to correctly translate our WooCommerce products, ensuring that the "File Scaricabile" (ACF field) can link to a different PDF for each language.

Therefore, we need clear guidance on:

What is the correct and recommended workflow in WPML/ACF to attach a different downloadable PDF file for each language of a WooCommerce product? Is our "duplication" method for the ACF file field fundamentally flawed, or is there a WPML setting we're missing?

Why are we still receiving the critical TypeError when saving products, regardless of whether they were duplicated or not? Could this error be related to how WPML processes downloadable file paths or ACF fields during synchronization/save?

We urge you to investigate these points thoroughly. We believe all these issues are interconnected and stem from how WPML and WooCommerce Multilingual and ACF handle complex product data, especially custom fields like downloadable files. We need a comprehensive solution that allows us to manage our multilingual products efficiently and without errors.

Thank you for your urgent attention to this matter.