PROBLEM WITH TRANSLATIONS

This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.

Problem:
If you're experiencing issues where changing a tag on a product in your shop causes the short description and description in other languages to be automatically overwritten with the content from the default language, this might be due to translation duplications.
Solution:
First, verify if the affected translations are set as duplicates of the original language. You can do this by editing the product and its translation in the admin area. If they are duplicates, you can click on the "Translate independently" button to stop syncing the content from the original product. For more details, please see the documentation here: https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/displaying-untranslated-content-on-pages-in-secondary-languages/#how-to-convert-a-translation-into-a-duplicate
If this does not resolve the issue, you may need to access the database, search for the translation product ID, and delete the meta key "_icl_lang_duplicate_of". After making these changes, update the product in the original language.

Please note that this solution might be irrelevant if it's outdated or not applicable to your case.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 the problem persists, please open a new support ticket at WPML support forum.

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Tagged: WCML

This topic contains 16 replies, has 0 voices.

Last updated by Sanja Jukic 3 days, 20 hours ago.

Assisted by: Long Nguyen.

Author	Posts
March 6, 2026 at 12:03 pm #17877712
Sanja Jukic	Hi, We are experiencing an issue in our shop related to WPML translations. Whenever we change a tag on a product and click Save, the short description and description in other languages are automatically overwritten with the content from the default language. This creates a significant problem because we are currently importing a large number of new products. If the translations are overwritten each time we make a small change (such as updating tags), it becomes very time-consuming to manually fix every translation product by product. Could you please advise what might be causing this behavior? Some additional questions: Is this related to the WPML Advanced Translation Editor? Would switching to the Classic Translation Editor or the default WordPress editor prevent the translations from being overwritten? Is there a setting that allows translations to remain independent when editing products? Our goal is to be able to update product tags without affecting already translated content. Thank you in advance for your help.
March 9, 2026 at 6:48 am #17880675
Long Nguyen WPML Supporter since 02/2022 Languages: English (English ) Vietnamese (Vietnamese ) Timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh (GMT+07:00)	Hi Sanja, I'm Long from the WPML Development team, I'm happy to help you with this issue. I checked a product page on your site hidden link and see that the translation in the Croatian language is the same as in the original Slovenian language hidden link but the translation is correct in the English language hidden link So I think the translation in Croatian is a duplication. Can you please edit the product and its translation in the admin area and let me know if it is correct? Please get more details in the documentation https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/displaying-untranslated-content-on-pages-in-secondary-languages/ Looking forward to your reply. Thanks
March 11, 2026 at 9:11 am #17887890
Sanja Jukic	I am not sure that you understand my problem. Translation of this product is fine. Croatian and Slovenian are similar but if you read you will see that it is differenet, This is not our problem. Probem is that we add with csv more than 100 eqipment products. We try to change atribute on one and it overwrite all translations ( description and short description ) with default language. We are repationg our request one more time. Your reply is nothing that we asked. Hi, We are experiencing an issue in our shop related to WPML translations. Whenever we change a tag on a product and click Save, the short description and description in other languages are automatically overwritten with the content from the default language. This creates a significant problem because we are currently importing a large number of new products. If the translations are overwritten each time we make a small change (such as updating tags), it becomes very time-consuming to manually fix every translation product by product. Could you please advise what might be causing this behavior? Some additional questions: Is this related to the WPML Advanced Translation Editor? Would switching to the Classic Translation Editor or the default WordPress editor prevent the translations from being overwritten? Is there a setting that allows translations to remain independent when editing products? Our goal is to be able to update product tags without affecting already translated content.
March 11, 2026 at 9:23 am #17887904
Long Nguyen WPML Supporter since 02/2022 Languages: English (English ) Vietnamese (Vietnamese ) Timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh (GMT+07:00)	Hi, To investigate the issue further, I would like to request temporary access (wp-admin and FTP) to your site. It would be better to have a testing site where the issue is replicated. Your next reply is set to private to share the info. ❌ IMPORTANT: Please backup your database and website before proceeding ❌ You can use this plugin to create the backup: https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/ Looking forward to your reply. Thanks
March 11, 2026 at 9:46 am #17888033
Sanja Jukic	Problem is that after import on all other languages show this: hidden link We need to remove it because it will syhronize all the time and that is problem. And everthing is translated ok but now we cant change anything. Also it changed look for variations. Main: hidden link Other hidden link hidden link
March 11, 2026 at 10:19 am #17888197
Long Nguyen WPML Supporter since 02/2022 Languages: English (English ) Vietnamese (Vietnamese ) Timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh (GMT+07:00)	Hi, Based on your screenshot, the translation product is indeed a duplication. You can click on the button "Translate independently" to stop syncing the content from the original product. It is noted in the documentation that I shared from my first reply https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/displaying-untranslated-content-on-pages-in-secondary-languages/#how-to-convert-a-translation-into-a-duplicate If it doesn't work, you can try to access the database, search for the translation product ID and delete the meta key "_icl_lang_duplicate_of", please check the attached screenshot. Then update the product in the original language, like changing attributes as well. Looking forward to your reply. Thanks
March 11, 2026 at 11:14 am #17888342
Sanja Jukic	I need to take off this globally for products some are simple, some variable and also be sure that this will not happen next time. It s not possible to go into one by one product and cllick translate indepently we dont have that much time.
March 11, 2026 at 11:19 am #17888349
Sanja Jukic	This is not option as we have too much ID. hidden link We imported thru CSV original products. Then we only import description and short description for other 2 of course by their ID. If this will be issue with every import we have big problem as we dont plan to do products by hand.
March 11, 2026 at 2:28 pm #17889237
Sanja Jukic	Now we had again few hours of work because we change thru bulk edit visibility from hidden to visible and all description and short description where agan override.
March 12, 2026 at 1:41 am #17890631
Long Nguyen WPML Supporter since 02/2022 Languages: English (English ) Vietnamese (Vietnamese ) Timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh (GMT+07:00)	Hi, Can you please share your site credentials as I requested above? And let me know how you import products, translation products, steps to do that. I will help you find the root of the issue. ❌ IMPORTANT: Please backup your database and website before proceeding ❌ You can use this plugin to create the backup: https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/ Alternatively, you can access the database, table wp_postmeta, search for the meta key "_icl_lang_duplicate_of" and delete all found rows to translate the product independently. Looking forward to your reply. Thanks
March 16, 2026 at 9:24 am #17899163
Long Nguyen WPML Supporter since 02/2022 Languages: English (English ) Vietnamese (Vietnamese ) Timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh (GMT+07:00)	Hi, I fixed the duplication issue for all products on your site. Now you can edit the product in the original language, add tags or edit content and save changes without syncing content to the translation products. Looking forward to your reply. Thanks
March 16, 2026 at 1:32 pm #17900589
Sanja Jukic	Hi, Can you let us know what caused issue so we can avoid this next time. As we also plan to import product in the future. Thanks, Sanja
March 17, 2026 at 3:32 am #17902108
Long Nguyen WPML Supporter since 02/2022 Languages: English (English ) Vietnamese (Vietnamese ) Timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh (GMT+07:00)	Hi, I already explained that the translation products are duplications, 3 times in this ticket. I fixed the issue by deleting all rows in the table wp_postmeta that have the meta key "_icl_lang_duplicate_of". Next time, if you import new products or update existing product content and still experience the issue, please let me know the steps you take to import. I will check and find the root of the issue. Thanks.
March 20, 2026 at 8:47 am #17912976
Sanja Jukic	Hi, If we enter product by hand and dont want to translate it thru new system how can I avoid this issues. Translation dashboard is not suitable because it cuts text file in two many raws. On page you just did copy paste on all descritipion. Maybe you can think of fixing this? If we made in main language and then duplicate to other for example and insert translation manually on page of certain product? I can explain now how we did it. - we prepared csv file - we importted file to main language - then we export original language and do translations for other 2 languages - we name them producten and producthr and then imported them in each language Thanks, Sanja
March 20, 2026 at 9:10 am #17913074
Long Nguyen WPML Supporter since 02/2022 Languages: English (English ) Vietnamese (Vietnamese ) Timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh (GMT+07:00)	Hi, 1. Translation dashboard is not suitable because it cuts text file in two many raws. Can you please share more details about this issue? What is the text file that Translation Dashboard cuts into many raws? Some screenshots or a screen record of this would be better so I can understand and check the issue. 2. If we made in main language and then duplicate to other for example and insert translation manually on page of certain product? If you want to translate the product/post/page manually, you can use the WordPress editor and you do not need to duplicate it. Or import the translation products without duplicating the original products Please follow the documentation https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/using-different-translation-editors-for-different-pages/ https://wpml.org/documentation/related-projects/wpml-export-and-import/ Thanks.