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

Problem:
The client manages a region-based site using WPML, originally set up by a developer who used WPML translations to manage regional content (Sydney, Perth, Auckland, etc.), not actual language translations. The main issue is that when editing the News & Culture (N&C) pages for regions in Elementor, the post loops (queries) do not display in the editor—even though they appear on the frontend. Making a regional page independent results in the disappearance of these queries, which are crucial for dynamic content display.

Solution:
To enable safe manual editing via Elementor and resolve the missing query loops:

Edit the original (Sydney) N&C page.

In the Language section of the page sidebar, click “WordPress Editor.”

In the popup, choose the first option ("Only affect this page").

Save changes.
This detaches the translated page and allows it to be manually edited using Elementor without breaking loop queries. It's also noted that query display issues may stem from unregistered Elementor widgets.

Relevant Documentation:

Using Different Translation Editors for Different Pages

WPML with Elementor Guide

Translating Custom Templates

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This topic contains 12 replies, has 2 voices.

Last updated by Carlos Rojas 1 month, 3 weeks ago.

Assisted by: Carlos Rojas.

Author Posts
June 10, 2025 at 4:37 am #17120076

chrisP-41

Background of the issue:
I am trying to manage a WordPress site for an Australian production company with offices in Sydney, Perth, SA, WA, Auckland, and London. Sydney is our master page, and the other regions are translations. We have a news and culture page for each region, and I need to make one of these regions independent. We use Elementor Pro for our site.

Symptoms:
The loops on the News & Culture pages aren't showing the queries, which means I would have to manually add them back in. This issue with queries disappearing has been ongoing.

Questions:
How can I fix the issue with the loops not showing the queries in Elementor Pro?
What steps can I take to make one of the regions independent without losing the queries?

June 10, 2025 at 7:08 am #17120346

Christopher Amirian
WPML Supporter since 07/2020

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Asia/Yerevan (GMT+04:00)

Hi,

Welcome to WPML support. I will answer this ticket before the ticket is assigned to one of my colleagues.

I am a little bit confused on how you use WPML. WPML is meant to be used to make the content multi-lingual, but it seems you use it other way.

Did you add custom languages for each region?

If yes, then you can either add the content separately by going to WP Dashboard > Pages and from the top admin language switcher change the language to the other region and add pages.

That way the pages there will be independent of the other ones.

In this scenario you will not need translations.

But in any case if you want to translate a page to have connection between the counterpart pages of the other regions you can use the manual translation mode:

https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/using-different-translation-editors-for-different-pages/

If you provide the debug information we will know if my assumption for the languages’ setup was correct or not:

https://wpml.org/faq/provide-debug-information-faster-support

Thanks.

June 10, 2025 at 7:24 am #17120420

chrisP-41

Our site was created by a developer who built it using WPML as he considered that the best approach. Although the site is strictly local, so there’s no other
languages, at times we need show different content based on the region, hence the reason for using WMPL. The dev thought it best to have a translation
for every page. No we don’t have custom languages for each region. This isn’t a typical way to use WMPL as all regions are simple Australian regions.
I don't think the debug info will help, but I have included it.

Regards,

Chris

June 11, 2025 at 1:23 pm #17126044

Alejandro
WPML Supporter since 02/2018

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español ) Italian (Italiano )

Timezone: Europe/Rome (GMT+02:00)

1) Before we continue, could you please update WPML to version 4.7.6? there were a few fixes that targeted Elementor in some of the versions after 4.7.3 and one of them was about Loops. I don't think it's your issue, but it's needed in order to continue.

Make sure you update not only WPML but its addons as well.

2) What exactly does the query do? most of the time, when the queries are not passed is because something on the site, belonging to the queries doesn't exist on the translated page. but you mentioned you have a particular setup which we'd need to understand more in order to find out what's going on with the loops.

3) Are you translating the pages via the translation editor or manually (as in getting into the elementor page for each language). It looks like it's the second one, so in those cases, you'd need to manually set everything up. is that what you're doing and sometimes the query just disappears?

If that's the case, then edit the original language of the above mentioned page and under the "languages" section, make sure you select "Native WordPress Editor" before making any change to the translations.

Let us know how it goes, to understand what to do next.

June 12, 2025 at 12:45 am #17128082

chrisP-41

Hi,

I'm reluctant to upgrade at the moment. In my last discussion with the developer, we downgraded the string translation to 3.3.2. The reason for this was most, if not all of the director pages weren't showing the correct videos. We have a category for all of our videos. Each category is a name, so every director page is populated by querying the category.

Once we downgraded the string translation, all the correct videos displayed. Upgrading WPML Multilingual CMS to the latest version might be fine, as this is a seperate upgrade, but I'm not sure if doing this will also upgrade the string translation, which caused this issue.

Regarding the issue with News & Culture page, this has been an ongoing issue that we've had since the site was developed. Initially, all N & C pages were translations of the Sydney page. All articles / posts on those pages were identical, so they weren't independent translations, so their was no need to edit via elementor. Now, for one of our regions, our rep wants some articles specific to that region, so we have made that page independent. The problem is that the queries disappear when I'm editing via Elementor, and as we have alot of articles, I don't want to have to go through each loop and put back in the articles, plus the articles themselves are not displaying in the loops either which is really frustrating - although when viewing the actual page, the posts show. I don't use the translation editor. The director pages use both the native wp editor - director info which then is called in dynamically via Elementor, AND Elementor as well, for the queries.

I have included a few more screenshots which will hopefully provide more info on how these pages are setup so you can see how I am querying the posts. The screenshot is from the master Sydney N & C page. On the other translations, the queries you see in that red box disappear, and the posts don't display in the loops either. I'd love to be able to fix this. We do also experience this with our director pages as well, although not all the time. If you like I can provide you with login credentials so you can see the problem.

Regards,

Chris

SS-2.jpg
SS-1.jpg
June 13, 2025 at 11:12 am #17133043

Carlos Rojas
WPML Supporter since 03/2017

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)

Hi Chris,
My name is Carlos, and I will continue working on this ticket

According to the description of the issue and the recommendation of my colleagues, the best path to take is to create a staging site with a copy of the live site and run all the tests there. That way, we won't affect the production site, and it will allow us to update the WPML plugins (and any other plugins) without any consequences.

Please create a staging site (you can use the WP Staging plugin for free) and share the access credentials in your next message, which I have set private.

Looking forward to your message.

June 16, 2025 at 12:34 pm #17138708

Carlos Rojas
WPML Supporter since 03/2017

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)

Hi Chris,
Thank you for sharing the credentials requested.

I ran some troubleshooting steps, translated and duplicated templates to make sure all templates are translated. However, there is one part that I don't quite understand: what is the expected result, and what exactly is the issue you are facing?

I'm asking again because many of the loop templates were not translated, and the NC posts are not translated, so I'm not sure what the goal is.

June 17, 2025 at 1:46 am #17140534

chrisP-41

Hi Carlos,

The issue I'm facing can be seen on the N & C pages. When I click "edit with elementor" you can't see any of the articles while in the edit mode. Even when I copy content over from Sydney to Perth as an example, I still can't see the articles - even in live preview, the page is blank. - FYI on our actual site, the live page is fine, but there's still the issue of those articles not showing in edit mode which is a big problem. I want to see what I'm editing. I think it's related to queries, as there seems to be a translation issue. Hope this makes sense.

Chris

June 17, 2025 at 8:29 am #17141309

Carlos Rojas
WPML Supporter since 03/2017

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)

Hi Chris,
Thank you for your answer.

In order to show the posts and the templates, I had to duplicate them in WPML -> Translation Management. Please go to hidden link -> 'Elementor Templates' and 'News and Culture' sections and see the content duplicated.

June 17, 2025 at 8:37 am #17141374

chrisP-41

OK, I've just opened up the News & Culture Page for Perth, ( Elementor Edit Mode ) and I still can't see any content. You've misunderstood my issue. Image attached. Hopefully this will make things clearer.

NC.jpg
June 17, 2025 at 9:38 am #17141551

Carlos Rojas
WPML Supporter since 03/2017

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)

Hi,

I created a screencast describing the steps to see the posts: hidden link

Also, the risks of manually editing the content in Elementor for the Perth version.

June 17, 2025 at 1:07 pm #17142554

chrisP-41

Thanks Carlos for the video. I understand how the translations work for a WPML site. The problem is this. As our site doesn't actually use different languages, there's no need to ever touch the translation editor.

WMPL mistakingly throws up a warning because it doesn't understand that the main reason for using WPML is actually only related to different regions, not different languages / translations - even though technically it is. My main goal is to make the N & C pages for the other regions independent, as there will be news articles that are region specific. When I do this, I'll need to edit those pages in the Elementor editor for updates, otherwise how else am I meant to do this outside of the Elementor editor? It's perfectly safe to edit the NC page as long as it's independent.

You made the posts appear which is good, but you'll notice that the actual queries still didn't show. Can you fix this?

June 17, 2025 at 1:24 pm #17142681

Carlos Rojas
WPML Supporter since 03/2017

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)

Hi,
Thank you very much for your message.

In this case, what you need to do is:
- Edit the N&C page in the original 'language' (Sydney)
- Go to the right column -> Language block -> Click on 'WordPress Editor' -> In the popup window, select the first option (only affects that page) -> Save the changes

Once you finish those steps, you will be able to manually edit each N&C page using Elementor without causing any additional problems.

Note: I suspect the queries are not shown because the Elementor elements are not correctly registered. But after following the steps described above this won't be an issue anymore.