This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.
Problem: The client updated internal links and content in posts, resulting in up to 50% of segments showing an orange bar and being untranslated or needing re-approval. This issue did not occur previously and was suspected to be related to recent server issues. Solution: The issue was due to the site not being properly registered and migrated between different environments (WPML test site, staging site, and production site). The site was moved, creating a new entry instead of copying the existing translation memory. We resolved this by manually merging the translation memory of all site organizations into the current one. The client should now cancel any affected 'In Progress' jobs at WPML > Translation Dashboard > Jobs, and create new jobs for the affected contents at WPML > Translation Dashboard. Assign the translations to yourself and access them at WPML > Translations. We have already applied this solution to the 'Best of Nightlife and Bars in La Spezia' and confirmed a 100% completed translation on ATE. Please verify if the issue is resolved by creating new translation jobs, as changes might not be visible on jobs currently in progress.
If this solution does not apply to your case, or if it seems outdated, we recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have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 WPML support forum.
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I have recently gone through my posts and updated some internal links, added a couple, and removed a couple. In doing so i also added a couple of sentences etc
I expect to have to update a segment where a link was removed or changed - and obviously where added.
But today, when I return to some of the post,s up to 50% of segments have an orange bar next to them, and most are untranslated, with a small percentage still translated but requiring a click of the green "save and complete" button for each segment.
This is alot of work and will be costly if I have to retranslate content that has been translated already (and for a long time now).
I was doing the same yesterday and did not come across this.
Could this have anything to do with the server issue today?
This update will not require any plugin updates, as the Advanced Translation Editor runs on an external server.
For now, we can sadly only advise marking each field manually. If you need my assistance, please do not hesitate to ask. I can enable a private reply form, which will allow you to provide admin access to the site.
One at a time is a massive job! Not all content has turned orange and reverted to English.
(especially because i just went through my entire site and updated links on all posts nd pages - now requireing all posta dn pages to be translated)
If my primary language is English and all the segments with the orange bars next to them also now appear in English for the language I am translating into (the right column) - if i click the lightning bolt button (Translate this text automatically) - am I being charged translation credits?
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: America/Lima (GMT-05:00)
Yes, in this case, you would get charged again.
If you changed the original text, it will always be expected that the affected segments need to be retranslated.
If original segments were not altered on the original content, and do now appear untranslated, I would need more details about the permalinks for the original jobs to look them up in our system.
What is kind of odd is that once I check the current organization for your site on our system, I am not able to find any jobs.
Please go to WPML > Support > Installer Support and click "Check now". Revise if there are any issues with the site's registration, like "Site key not matching". I am asking, as according to our system, this site has been migrated without creating a new site key. It would be great if you could verify that.
At the beginning of January I cloned <laspeziaguide.com> to <staging.lapseziaguide.com>
From that point in time, i did not touch laspeziaguide.com>
I made changes to the staging site only, removing a Custom Post Type (and all it related content - so the site is not only Pages and Posts. As mentioned, I also went through all posts and pages and removed, adeed or updated internal links.
Earlier this week, I pushed all the changes back to the main domain <laspeziaguide.com>
It is obvious that the content was previously translated because the front end reflects that - THE FRONT END IS STILL TRANSLATED from the past.
I can provide you with some very good examples if you want me to share.
Regarding the "Site key not matching" - i don't remember NOT going through the process of setting the staging site to a copy of the main site when prompted by WPML - but according to the log I was not done for about 1 week.
When i switched back to the live site, the Site Key was updated straight away. I had a problem with something not working (i can't remember exactly what it was) so I unregistered and re-registered the live site and re-added the Site Key.
I attached some screenshots of the Installer Support
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: America/Lima (GMT-05:00)
Usually, each time the site URL or server changes, a new unique site key needs to be created on wpml.org, and the site needs to be registered again. According to your screenshot, the site currently seems to be registered correctly.
About the translations:
If you changed the original content, it will clear the affected segments inside the Advanced Translation Editor, and expect that new translations will need to be translated. This is technically the point where the WPML Translation Editor resets its translation memory for the affected translated segment.
It is expected at this point that the old translation will still show up on the Frontend until the new translation job has been completed.
This means that if you changed the original content, then this behavior would be expected.
What would not be expected are the orange markers, and I can offer to you to assist you in resetting them manually if you provide me with admin access to your site, as sadly, until now, we do not have a better workaround for this issue.
An update that will fix this issue might be released within the next two weeks.
Thanks for offering, but I would not wish that on anyone - it has to be clicked one segment at a time, to translate, then to approve....(i have been doing this for more than a week now, i did all pages and main posts on staging before transferring the site to live.
There are many posts with 4000 words - and when 50% are now marked orange and in English requiring re-translation, but I am more worried about the cost.
Considering it is a known WPML issue - it there any way to suspend the credits being used?
Also, I can't wait to get this all translated and back online - the front end looks fine now, but I don't have a choice, I need to translate because of the internal link changes.
Also, some pages are currently broken in the other languages as I removed some global widgets in Elementor Pro and some other plugins (it was to be expected), thinking translating will not take long, as I will only have a few links per post to update and maybe 2-10 sentences per post - not 100's 🙂
Now there are not many pages like this, but I thought they would only be down for a day or two, and due to another ongoing WPML issue where all our shortcodes become untranslated if i either edit a post or move the site from staging to live - meaning if i translated everything BEFORE pushing to live, i would then have to translate all posts with shortcodes all over again in the ATE on the new domain....
(I reported this 2 years ago and again last year, but it has not been fixed, so i just live with it and organise the workflows around this - hence a few broken pages is better than having to go through all posts to translate the shortcodes).
So thanks for offering, but I would be perfectly happy if iwas not being charged the credits on top of having to do all this extra work due to a known WPPML issue.
DO you think you can sort something out?
By the way i realise that some of the segments require translating because I made changes, but from what i have come across so far, 80-90% are nothing to do with any edits I made.
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: America/Lima (GMT-05:00)
I was able to find your example on our system: hidden link
Based on what I see on the system, it actually looks like your content was translated in 2025, but then the site was moved, without actually copying the translation memory.
I have now merged the old translation memory into the new site.
Could you please try creating a new translation job for one of the affected contents at WPML > Translation Dashboard and verify if the issue persists?
In WP > All Posta - i click on the German Translation
As you can see from the image - 50-60% of the progress bar is orange....(144 flagged for later)
the 7% ot 18 segments not started would seem about right for the changes i made to this particular post.
It has only taken/used 123 segments from the translation memory.
When you said you merged the old translation memory - i assume merge doesn't mean overwrite, and as this has all been translated before (except the 18 segments), maybe i need to do something else for it to take effect?
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: America/Lima (GMT-05:00)
Your site URL currently has three organizations on our system for which I merged the translation memory. Usually, this should read in the old translations from 2025.
For now, please avoid using automatic translation until this issue is solved.
I'd like to request temporary access (wp-admin and FTP) to the website to investigate the issue further.
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Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: America/Lima (GMT-05:00)
About your example post:
This post is not yet translated to 100%.
The orange markers have to be manually removed on each segment. You can use the shortcut Alt-D to remove the markers. I know this may appear very inconvenient at the moment, but this is the only option we can offer to solve this problem.
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I have reviewed the jobs for this content on our system, and it seems that such segments, which are currently showing the original content in a second language, have not been translated earlier.
Example:
"Find below our Google - My Map to help you locate the main transport and parking locations in La Spezia."
This segment uses the same original text in all translations, and according to what I see on the system, it has never been translated.
If you are sure that this and other segments have been translated earlier, please confirm, as I see that this site has been migrated very often in the past, and I might need to take a closer look at the system.
Currently, the only way would be to go manually through every translation, remove the marks, and make sure that each segment is translated.
The post and all posts except 2 (which i added over the weekend and haven't translated as you said not to use automatic translation until the problem is solved) have been 100% translated and live for at least the last 5-6 months (or more).
This post: hidden link
is about two years old and has had one major overhaul around May last year - which was then translated and was not updated until about 2 weeks ago.
If you look at the post on the front end, you will see it is translaetd into 4 languages, 3 of the 4 languages are from the last translation since May 2025.
You can see the Last Updated Date on the IT, DE, and ES posts (top of the post conetn under the hero.
FR is current becasue i opened it in the ATE and began/tried to translate it last week.
Your Example:
"Find below our Google - My Map to help you locate the main transport and parking locations in La Spezia."
is translated already on each of the 4 languages - again from last May - BUT now it appears untranslated ONLY in the ATE with the orange markers next to them.
EVERY post on this site was 100% translated - about two weeks ago, all I changed was internal linking, and in order to add a few internal links, I may have either modified or added a few sentences (or both) in every post. I expect to have to translate these.
Maybe 1-2% of the post content/segments should require updating. NOT 50%+
So on the frontend, you can clearly see from the example post that the translations in all languages basically match the English post (except for probably a couple of sentences).
You are right, the site has been pushed back and forth a lot while continually under development, but I have never faced this issue before. So, please can you take a closer look at the system and see if this can be solved?
Thank you
I can provide other post examples if you require - but it is just more of the same as the current example. (by the way, not all posts have been affected to the same extent).
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: America/Lima (GMT-05:00)
Thank you very much for the provided details!
Example: hidden link
Translation ID 179965429
From English en to French fr
Date: 2026-01-30 18:18:52 UTC
This translation job does not contain the mentioned text in the original content:
"Find below our Google My Map to help you locate the main transport and parking locations in La Spezia."
You can see the job here while being logged in to your site: hidden link
As you can see, it is translated to 100%, and the mentioned text does not exist.
According to this, the content was added right after that, as I can find it on the next job from 2026-01-31 14:13:57 UTC: hidden link
I then revise the original XLIFF files for this content from May 2025, and there I can actually confirm that the mentioned text existed.
This means, it looks to me as if the original content was recently altered and then translated again. Meaning, the original content was removed, then the content was translated again. After that, the missing content was added again, and this had reset the translation memory for those segments.
Could this be the reason for the issue?
Please provide more details, as I really need to understand how exaclty this issue occured.
Ok, so until around the 2/3rd of January the site had remained untouched for approx 6 months - all completely translated.
In the first week I got our hosting company to clone the live site to a staging subdomain.
I still have the live site and files sitting on another VPS server - in case you want to view them.
From that point i worked on the staging site and changed themes from Directorist to Hello Elementor, removed around 20 plugins, and everything associated with the Directorist directory listings.
I cleaned the DB, all tables, rows, options etc for all the removed plugins. I did this manually and did not touch anything to do with WPML (that is, anything with "icl" or "wpml" in the prefix/keys).
I also found some WPML content online (maybe from a support chat) on how to remove translations for plugins that are no longer in use on a site. As we had over 1000 directory listings plus pages etc with Directorist widgets - I needed to remove to reduce the size of our bloated DB.
I followed the instructions, and if i remember correclty it was removing Ghost Entries, Cleanup, and Optimize String Tables, and anything to do with removing orphans.
I had not updated any content or internal linking at that point, so I did not check anything to do with translations because I had no need to translate anything, and the front end looked perfect in English.
Updating internal links and translating the posts was my last task, and I only noticed the problem last week.
I am 100% that the content was all there and translated back in May as you say, and i am all being 100% honesta nd accurate in saying that on average i made changes to 1-2% of segments per post ant most - so I don't see a reason for them now being untranslated.
Can you not merge/add translations (to the translation memory) from May? Would that cause any conflict?
The only other thing i can think of (and i may have already mentioned it) when i first pushed the site to staging, i did not update the site key for about a week....in this time all i was doing was removing plugins (like, WPDiscuz, Blog2Socail, swapped Yoast to SEOPress, ACF and Directorist related extensions) and then simply tidied up elements on pages adn templates that were afffected by this.
I don't know, I have been using WPML for 2-3 years now and consider myself quite competent with it, but I can't pinpoint anything regarding this issue.
All the posts and pages that were 20% or thereabouts untranslated (and i know they were definitely translated already) i just went through and redid them due to needing to get the site finished. I only raised a ticket when i stared comeing across 50%+ untranslated posts, as i said, apart from the cost, it is the time it takes.
I don't know what else to tell you, if you have any specific questions, let me know.
Otherwise, let me know about merging translations from May (only if there will be no further problems).
By the way, we have had a problem with translating shortcodes for 2 years now - every time I add and translte th,e they save and function. But over time, and also if i update a post (anything, some text, not related to the shortcodes) when I go to the ATE 9 times out of 10 the Shortcode segment fields are empty and require re-translating.
I am not asking you to look into it, just saying it may be related (but I doubt it, as it has been going on for 2 years now and I have never had this current issue with general text or url o rlink segemnts, just shortcodes.
