Problem: The client is experiencing issues with the Newspaper theme recommended by WPML. The translatable strings are appearing as gibberish or random characters, and the language switcher is not functioning correctly; it does not open or change the language as expected. Solution: We recommend the following steps to address the issues: 1. Navigate to WPML > Settings > Custom XML Configuration in your WordPress dashboard. 2. Add the following XML configuration and save:
If this solution does not resolve your issues or seems irrelevant due to being outdated or not applicable to your case, we highly recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If issues persist, please open a new support ticket at https://wpml.org/forums/forum/english-support/.
Problem: The client was unable to save the language switcher settings in the WPML -> Languages menu. Despite receiving a 'settings saved' message, the settings were not preserved upon page reload, and the language switcher did not appear in the main menu. The issue persisted even after clearing the WPML cache and was not present on a cloned site. The client discovered that disabling tagDiv plugins allowed changes to be made, but this was not a viable long-term solution. Solution: We identified that a file named
maintenance.php
, which was unexpectedly present in the wp-content folder, was causing the issue. This file was likely generated by a plugin not currently installed. Removing this file resolved the problem, allowing the client to modify the language switcher settings without needing to deactivate the tagDiv plugins. This solution suggests that the issue was related to a server-specific drop-in plugin that interfered with WPML and tagDiv plugins.
If this solution does not resolve your issue, or if it seems outdated, we recommend checking the related known issues, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. Should the problem persist, please open a new support ticket.
