[Resolved] All internal links translation were gone
This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.
Problem: All internal links translation were gone
Solution: It is happening because of copying the same links to secondary languages. We don't have to do that and should just ignore links that can't be translated.
So this is an expected result.
Relevant Documentation:
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 found that it's even worse: I have a page where I had already translated all the internal links. Later, I changed one link in the default language. When I opened the Advanced Translation Editor to adjust that single link, all internal links were gone and I had to re-enter all of them.
It's impossible to work with. Please try to make a quick fix for this.
Yes, it happens in multiple posts (I think in all). There were no recent major changes, like adding new plugins. We're just starting to translate and edit in bulk, so the problem may have been there all along but we're only finding out now.
Note that after editing a link in English, the translated links in German are not only gone in the WPML Translation Editor, but also from the frontend page. So, all links on the German page now point to English pages again, as if we never translated anything. That's a bad experience for site visitors and should never happen.
I have a copy of the site where the same problem occurs. Your colleague Nigel has access details, but I can give you a separate login if needed. The page I tested with has ID 6026.
This is urgent. It's very time-consuming and hinders our work.
Thank you for the details. The Advanced Translation Editor has translation memory. So please try the following steps and check is there any difference the result. It may help.
1) Visit WPML>>Translation Management Dashboard
2) Choose the Page you want to translate or update the existing translations
3) Send it to Translation Basket
4) Visit WPML>>Translation Management>>Translation Basket
5) Send it for translation, by choosing yourself as a translator
6) Visit WPML>>Translations queue and translate the page by clicking the *Translate* button
I tried it. Now, when the ATE opened, the German URLs were still available but the English URLs (pointing to the pages that are not translated yet) were again lost. So, that's an "improvement" as it did not lose all URLs but only half of them. Note that I did not get a "Translate" button on my translation job. It said it was completed even though I just created the job. So I clicked the edit button instead. It's strange behavior.
Then I tried opening the ATE straight from the WordPress page list, rather than going through the 6 steps. The same thing happened.
So, there's no difference currently. Also, I don't understand why the 6 steps are the only correct workflow if you do the translation (or a small edit) yourself. The edit/pencil button to open the ATE directly is much faster. The 6 steps are only handy to send work to external translators.
I'm not sure how to proceed. It's still forgetting links we have already translated.
Thank you for the feedback. Please share the following details for tracking this.
a) Please share a screencast of the issue. It will help us a lot in our internal discussion
b) Please share the URL of a couple of pages having this bug
c) Is another Admin or Translator translated these pages in the past
d) Please share the credentials to access your staging site. It will be great if you can consider a fresh clone copy of the live site for further debugging of this issue.
a) The screencast at hidden link shows several issues:
1. I first edited the Budget page and changed one link.
2. Then you'll see that the WPML icon doesn't show that this page has been changed. I clicked the edit icon anyway.
3. All link translations are gone, although I did translate them before.
4. Another issue is that the link I changed points to the homepage but that URL is not listed in the ATE.
5. I translated all links again (copying the English value to speed things up) and completed the translation.
6. I opened the translation again. All link translations except one are gone.
b) All pages have this issue as far as I know. But you can test with the Budget page I used in my example.
c) The Budget page was translated by an external translator. We are supposed to translate the links ourselves. But we can't because of this issue.
d) You can log into a recent copy of the site using Nigel's login:
<removed because somehow this was not a private reply??>
It feels like WPML ignores all links: it does not remember translations and changing a link is not considered a content change.
We had a few rounds of testing locally. But the issue is existing in my local copy in a minimal setup. So consulting with our team now. Please wait. We will get back to you as early as possible.
Somehow the Duplicator packages were not working as expected while configuring it. It only installed after several tries. That is the reason for the delay in my reply. Please check the attached images for more details.
We had a few rounds of testing in our local copy in a minimal setup. Please check the following screencast. The translation is not losing for the links when I translate the links instead of copying them.
hidden link
If you want to keep the same links, you don't have to translate links by copying them. Therefore please translate the links once again and check whether the issue is existing or not.
You're right! So, we should just ignore links that can't be translated yet. It's unexpected that copying links from English to German will cause all links to be forgotten, but now that we know this we can at least prevent it.
I have some related follow-up questions but will post these in separate threads.
