[Resolved] Problem with special characters in french
This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.
Problem:
[French] is shown in French translations.
Solution:
I've checked things on your site and found out that the problem is coming from one of the files in the following location:
/wp-content/languages/wpml/
Please proceed as follows.:
1. Take a backup of your site in case something goes wrong so you will be able to restore things before the following changes.
2. Connect to your site with FTF or use the WP File Manager plugin that is installed on your site. And go to /wp-content/languages/wpml/.
3. Select all the files in this folder and delete them.
4. Visit WPML -> String Translation. This should generate new files in /wp-content/languages/wpml/ and fix the problem.
**** Important! Please make a full site backup (files and DB) before you proceed with those steps****
This is the technical support forum for WPML - the multilingual WordPress plugin.
Everyone can read, but only WPML clients can post here. WPML team is replying on the forum 6 days per week, 22 hours per day.
I can see that you are using our Multilingual Tools plugin which is intended for developers to test their products’ multilingual capabilities. This plugin can add such language tags. It is clearly stated in our documentation this plugin is not intended for use on productions site.
This tool produces a duplicate of the original content appended with the language code and modifies any existing translations. Therefore, you should never run it on production or client sites.
I installed:
WPML Multilingual CMS
WPML String Translation
WPML Translation Management
& i use the Classic Translation Editor. Not sure about Multilingual Tools. Think i did the same thing i do in every site i use WPML.
How can we fix the problem with the french? Any directions what to look for or change?
I've discussed this issue with one of our developers. He says that the cause of this could very well be the Multilingual Tools plugin. That is a developers' tool.
You wrote: "Not sure about Multilingual Tools. Think i did the same thing i do in every site i use WPML."
Does this mean that you have used this plugin to generate dummy translated strings or post content?
In any case, our developer says that you should deactivate and remove this plugin from your live site.
We deleted the Multilingual Tools. I didn't use it at all but maybe previous developer did. Thing is even after i deleted we still cannot write in French. If we write:
Je m'appelle Angélica Summer, j'ai 12 ans
we get
Je m[French] ’appelle Angélica Summer, j[French] ’ai 12 ans
so we cannot complete our site.
First language was Greek for that site, then English and then french. I didn't used the Multilingual Tools. We have all the translations in word documents and we just copy paste. Any other idea how to solve this?
After we deleted Multilingual Tools we get [English] in our english translation in random places like footer. How can we remove them? Site is in bad shape with that problem. Please give us instructions what we can do
I can't see the problem ([English]) in the footer of the English version of your site.
Can you please send me a screenshot of this issue or explain to me where to see it.
Currently, I can not see the French version of your site.
Have you disabled it?
You wrote: "We have all the translations in word documents and we just copy-paste."
I suspect that copying and pasting text from a Word Document might cause the issue.
Can you please make a test and try to see what if the problem occurs if you simply type the French texts or characters that create this problem?
For example, try please to insert manually the following string in a translation.
Je m'appelle Angélica Summer, j'ai 12 ans
We opened french translation again. Can you please take a look? It is urgent so we cannot let the french online much longer. We tried paste from notepad with no success. Please get back at us as soon as possible.
If you need further help with this, please share the access details to your site with me. Maybe I'll also install the ARI Adminer plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/ari-adminer/) to check the DB of your site as I suspect that it might be a DB collation issue.
I'm enabling a private message for the next reply.
I've checked many things on your site regarding this issue. I still have no solution for this issue and I'm going to consult our second tier supporters regarding it. Meanwhile, I want to describe here what I've checked.
1. First I checked the homepage and found out that is was originally created in English and not in Greek which is the default language of the site.
2. Then I checked the French translation of the homepage from English and I could see that it is not translated into French with WPML. The translations ware in English I could see that in WPML's Translation Editor and also in String Translation. Please see the attached screenshot te-is-en.jpg and st-in-en.jpg. From this, I could only conclude that what is showing on the front-end is not the translations of WPML.
Note: by performing the above all the French translation of the homepage got lost because WPML didn't contain them. So if you need them to show please insert them again in WPML's Translation Editor.
3. I then noticed that there is another translation plugin (My WP Translate) on your site which is deactivated.
Have you used this plugin to translate the site before using WPML?
4. As I mentioned I suspected that the problem is being caused due to pasting the text from Word or another source. So I used a French keyboard to type manually the French string. Please see the attached screenshot type-fr.jpg. But this gave the same result on the frontend.
5. I proceeded with checking if the problem also occurs on a new post. So I created a new post in Greek and translated it into English and French. I inserted a French text both in the English translation and in the French translation. And I could see that the problem is happening only in the French translation whereas in English the French text looks alright. Please see the attached screenshots fr-on-fr-x.jpg and fr-on-en-v.jpg.
So with all this information, I'm going to consult our second tier supporters. While I wait for their reply I want to ask you to migrate your site to our server where we can continue to debug the issue. I'm going to add all the details on how you can do it in the next private reply.
Our second tier supporter instructed me to check if the issue comes from the .mo files that are on your site. I can access the folder which contains those files /wp-content/languages/ but I do not want to make any changes on your site that would cause it to break. Therefore I'm waiting for you to migrate your site to our server. Please let me know when it is done.
