We are trying to get WooCommerce Bookings working on the French version of our website using WPML.
We want the French version of our bookable product to use the same Resource/availability as the English.
Steps we've taken:
- Initially "Bookable resources (bookable_resource)" were set to "Translatable
only show translated items" on the WPML setting page along with "Bookings (wc_booking)" & "Person Type (bookable_person).".
We have since set all of these to "Not translatable".
- A translated copy of our main WC Bookings Resource was mistakingly created before we switch the post type to "Not translatable".
- A translation of our bookable product was also created.
Now:
- Neither the English or French WC Booking forms are working. The WC Booking Calendars are not loading, causing an error on the console which I've included below.
- I cannot remove the translated copy of the resource (I thought this could be confusing things) as I'm getting the error "You cannot trash/delete a resource that has Bookings associated with it."
- I also cannot remove the French translated copy of the Bookable Product as I'm getting the same error "You cannot trash/delete a resource that has Bookings associated with it."
- No new bookings have actually been created using the French bookable product or the French resource, the reason I'm getting this error is WPML has created 2 copies of every English booking in French despite "Bookings (wc_booking)" being set to "Not translatable" in WPML settings. So for every booking a have a total of 3 bookings on 3 different booking numbers... I cannot find a way removing these duplicate bookings, I'm just getting an error when trying to trash them as they are also trying to trash the associated Order.
Console error on the WC Booking form:
Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 ()
"hidden link"
You can see this live here: hidden link
I have no idea where to start with this. My approach was trying to get back to square one by removing the duplicated French bookings, then the French bookable product and then the French Resource. But I can't remove any of them as detailed above. So I'm currently stuck with French copies of the bookable product & resource that don't work and have broken my English bookable product, along with thousands of extra duplicate bookings in French WPML has created for reasons I don't understand.
Happy to provide staging access as this need resolved promptly?
Sorry for the issues you are having. I will try my best to help you here.
A detailed guide on how to translate WooCommerce Bookings is linked next. If you don't want to translate the Bookings-related texts and options, you can set the Bookings-related post types to "Not translatable" as you did.
To delete the translated Resources and Products:
- Go to WPML -> Settings page, scroll to the "Posts and pages synchronization" section and make sure "When deleting a post, delete translations as well" is not selected.
- Ensure there are no orders attached to the translated Resources and Products by deleting orders if any are attached to them.
- Then try deleting the resources/products.
As for the issue of duplicated bookings, it may or may not be related to WPML. The next test should help you find that.
Also, the Booking forms not working issue may or may not be related to WPML. I can see the AJAX request to find the booked day is returning a 500 server error with a critical error on the front end. So, it looks like something on the site is interacting with WooCommerce Bookings to cause the critical error, thus breaking the booking form load.
The error log on the host might have more details on what error is being caused and why the request is returning 500 errors. Please load the booking product page and check the error log. The last few lines of the error log should give more insight into what is failing and causing the issue.
To confirm if the booking form not loading issue is due to WPML or not, can you please deactivate all plugins on the site except WooCommerce, WooCommerce Bookings, and activate a default theme like Twenty Twenty-One then see if the form works? If it works, you can activate other plugins and theme one by one to see which one starts the issue. Finally, you can do the same test and place test booking orders each time to find what is causing the duplicate booking orders.
=== Please make sure to back up the site files and database completely first to prevent any data loss ===
We have managed to fix the calendar not loading issue.
It was caused by one of the duplicate French WooCommerce Bookings which didn’t have a Bookable Product associated with it.
This issue still is not fully resolved however, as availability of WooCommerce Booking blocks is now being incorrectly impacted by these duplicate French bookings.
As it stands:
- I have thousands of duplicate bookings in French. These are duplicates of the English bookings. Here is an example, all of these bookings are the result of the order 71925 on which a customer booked once and paid once. In this case there are actually 2 x duplicates in French:
Screenshots: hidden link hidden link
- These duplicate bookings are having an impact on availability of WooCommerce Bookable Products on the front end calendars. Example here: hidden link of our WC Booking Resources block allows 10 x persons to be booked onto them. On my example below there is 1 x booking with 8 x persons booked on the 11am tour 2nd June 2022. On the front end calendar, I have no spaces available - I should have 2 (10 persons as defined on the WC Booking Resource less the 8 x persons booked on order 71925). So Woo Booking is counting the 2 x duplicate French bookings in addition to the original English booking when calculating what blocks are available for booking and so I have no 11am slot available for customers to book. This is incorrect.

Screenshots: hidden link hidden link
- All new bookings being created with WPML active are creating duplicate bookings in French as I’ve stated above, though most are only created 1 x duplicate rather than the 2 x in my example above. These duplicate bookings are impacting availability as I state above.
I basically have no idea what the expected behaviour here is and how WPML is supposed to work with WC Bookings. Are these duplicate bookings by design, if so why are they impacting availability. Something isn’t configure properly I suspect but really not clear what.
This is directly impacting operations and revenue so we need to get resolved quickly. Happy to provide staging access to these examples.
I tried replicating the issue on a clean test site. Bookings were not duplicated and worked fine for me. So the problem seems to be specific to your site.
Can you please do the following tests and let me know your results:
2. As I advised in the same reply. Please Deactivate all the plugins except WooCommerce, and WooCommerce Bookings and activate a default theme like Twenty Twenty-one and see if any duplicates are created for new bookings.
3. Activate WPML and WooCommerce Multilingual and see if the duplicates are created for new bookings.
3. If duplicates are not created yet, activate other plugins and your theme one by one to see which one starts the issue.
Please let me know the test results, and I can look into the issue further and send it to our Compatibility team for further check if required.
Also, please send the credentials to your staging site to troubleshoot your test results further. I have enabled private reply for you to share the credentials safely. Please make sure to send both WP-Admin and FTP.
Please make a full backup of your site (files and database) and confirm it in your next reply. I might need to enable/disable plugins, switch themes and access your website database.
