Background of the issue:
I am in the process of switching my website from the Classic Translation Editor to the Advanced Translation Editor. I have disabled the option 'Use also for old translations created with the Classic Editor' in the settings to preserve existing translations and keep them available for updates.
Symptoms:
When I open older translations, the Advanced Editor appears instead of the Classic Editor, and all the translation fields are empty.
Questions:
Why is the Advanced Editor appearing instead of the Classic Editor for older translations?
What is the recommended way to switch to the Advanced Translation Editor while still being able to update old translations without losing any existing content?
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )Italian (Italiano )
Timezone: Europe/Rome (GMT+02:00)
Hello,
I'll try to help you while a supporter takes your case.
Whenever you switch to any translation method (Classic editor to Advanced or vice versa, advanced/classic to manual translation and vice versa) you will always lose something.
In the case of classic > Advanced you'll probably lose most if not all the content because they use different ways of receiving the text and translating it. it might look like they are quite similar visually but structurally they are entirely different features that work in entirely different way and are not compatible among them.
The option you mention will work for the pages you had previously translated but also that hadn't been too modified (sometimes you might fix a typo but maybe the site sees it as a big change) and that might be the case here, maybe?
if you do not make any change to a page you had translated with the classic translation editor, do you still see the advanced editor when you try to update a translation by any chance?
After switching the editor, I went to WPML > Translations and saw that the products have different statuses. Some are marked as “Completed - Needs update” and others as “Completed”. Without changing the original content, I checked several translations with both statuses, and they always opened in the Advanced Editor.
However, I opened a post (not a product) with the “Completed - Needs update” status, and it opened in the Classic Editor.
I also have custom post types, and most of their translations open in the Classic Editor, although some still open in the Advanced Editor.
It’s hard to find a clear pattern. From what I remember, the website has always used the Classic Editor since launch.
At the moment if there is content that has not been updated and the option Use also for old translations created with the Classic Editor is disabled it would be good for us to take a closer look.
Do keep in mind please that if that option was not disabled first and the automatic translation or changes were made it will now open up with the ATE editor still.
I would like to request temporary access (wp-admin and FTP) to your site to test the issue.
(preferably to a test site where the problem has been replicated if possible)
**Before we proceed It is necessary to take FULL BACKUP of your database and your website. Providing us with access, you agree that a backup has been taken **
I often use the Duplicator plugin for this purpose: http://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/
You will find the needed fields for this below the comment area when you log in to leave your next reply.
The information you enter is private which means only you and I have access to it.
NOTE: If access to the live site is not possible and the staging site does not exist please provide me with a duplicator package created with the duplicator plugin.
I can confirm that I was able to reproduce the issue by following these steps:
1. Created a new product
2. Added the translation using Classic Translation Editor and marked it as completed
3. Switched back to the Advanced Translation Editor and the products open in the Advanced Editor instead of the Classic.
I am escalating this to our second tier for further investigation and will update you once I have some feedback.
If you are comfortable following the steps please do so and update me here with your results, otherwise if I have your permission to run the SQL query I will move forward and apply the workaround to your site.
I followed the steps in the staging environment, and everything seems to be working fine. I checked a couple of old products, and their translations now open in the Classic Editor.
