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

Problem:
You are experiencing issues where you are asked to translate from French to French instead of from English to French. Additionally, you notice duplicate translations of image text in the translation editor.
Solution:
1. If you are not using the Media Translation plugin, we recommend removing it from your plugins list. This action might require cleaning the media translations from the database.
2. Alternatively, disable the Media Text translation in the Advanced Translation Editor (ATE) and use Media Translation only for necessary cases.
3. To remove duplicate translations, follow these steps:
- Search for the English title of the image in the Media Library.
- Identify duplicates of the same image.
- Keep the Media Library tab open, and open the concerned page with Elementor to check the date and file name of the image currently in use.
- Return to the Media Library and delete all files that do not match the details on Elementor.
- Make a small edit to the page, save, and update the translation.

If this solution does not resolve your issue or seems irrelevant due to being outdated or not applicable to your case, we highly recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent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 further assistance is needed, please open a new support ticket at WPML support forum.

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.

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This topic contains 22 replies, has 2 voices.

Last updated by Ilyes 3 months, 2 weeks ago.

Assisted by: Ilyes.

Author Posts
August 6, 2024 at 1:32 am #16042312

ronaldT-5

Background of the issue:
I am trying to translate only from English to French. The issue can be seen on this page: hidden link.

Symptoms:
On occasions, I am mistakenly expected to translate from French to French content instead of from English to French.

Questions:
Why am I being asked to translate from French to French?
How can I ensure that I only translate from English to French?
Someone at WPML fixed all such issues, but all my issues keep coming back like bad weather. I'm truly feed up as I move two steps forward, and one step backward.

August 6, 2024 at 1:33 am #16042328

ronaldT-5

WPML is truly exhaustive to me, and leads me nowhere to the finish line.

August 6, 2024 at 5:35 pm #16045009

Ilyes
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) French (Français )

Timezone: Pacific/Easter (GMT-05:00)

Hello,

Thank you for contacting WPML support team,

It seems the language assigned to this page (and other page with the same issue) is set incorrectly either from the backend or from the database,

As an initial checkup, if you edit the page with WordPress Editor, what language does it show on the language tab on the left side?

Also, please allow me to walk you through some initial debugging steps. This will help speed up the support process.
Can you please try to do a backup of your site and go to WPML > Support > troubleshooting and try all the following buttons: hidden link

You can refer to this documentation on how to do it : https://wpml.org/documentation/support/wpml-troubleshooting-options/

If that did not help, please prepare and access to your side admin and I would be more than happy to find the issue and a fix for you,

Below you can find the access form where you can share the credentials privately,

Best regards,

August 7, 2024 at 2:48 am #16046022

Ilyes
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) French (Français )

Timezone: Pacific/Easter (GMT-05:00)

Hello again,

Unfortunately the admin link you shared is unreachable, please refer to this screenshot : hidden link

I tried different countries with VPN to make sure this is not a geo-constraint, but I still can't access,

It seems that it is related to the DNS configuration, stagin14.home-alarm.ca is not pointing to any IP,

Please let me know how I can access it,

August 7, 2024 at 3:06 am #16046024

ronaldT-5

Add a "g" at the end of "stagin"

It's a spelling error.

August 7, 2024 at 3:08 am #16046026

ronaldT-5

hidden link

August 7, 2024 at 5:19 pm #16049508

Ilyes
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) French (Français )

Timezone: Pacific/Easter (GMT-05:00)

Hello,

I have not been able to replicate the issue after multiple trials and just in case, I have resaved the language settings under WPML > Language > Edit languages > save, as shown in this screenshot : hidden link

You have 2 language pairs:

- English to French
- French to English

Please resave the language's configuration, just to make sure no caches are involved in this,

Finally, see if enabling this option helps too : hidden link

Let me know if you have a clear way to replicate this if the issue occurs again,

August 7, 2024 at 6:08 pm #16049673

ronaldT-5

Not exactly sure what you mean by having 2 language pairs. I never translate from French to English, only from English to French.

Okay, I will re-save the language configuration, but I have no clue how to get to the same screen as shown on your snapshot. WPML->Languages doesn't do it for me. See attachment below.

Screenshot 2024-08-07 at 2.05.02 PM.jpg
August 7, 2024 at 7:26 pm #16049750

ronaldT-5

Okay, I was able to find where to re-save the said language settings. Unfortunately, it made no difference to me.

See attachment...

hidden link

Yes, I have cleared browser and serve caches.

Screenshot 2024-08-07 at 3.22.29 PM.jpg
August 8, 2024 at 11:18 pm #16054509

ronaldT-5

I have duplicated the staging14 site to a temporary staging environment.

So, this is the new temporary page for you to use to troubleshoot:

hidden link

Let me know how things go.

Thanks!

August 8, 2024 at 11:52 pm #16054536

Ilyes
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) French (Français )

Timezone: Pacific/Easter (GMT-05:00)

Hello,

It seems to be more complexe than I first predicted, here is video explaining what the issue is and how to fix it :

hidden link

Long story short, this content is not part of the visible content : hidden link

These texts are coming from your media files that you have already translated from WPML > Media translation, here is one example : hidden link

And here is how you can see both the translation and the original detected by the translation editor : hidden link

This is a problem that occurs when you use two different methods to translate the media text, from media translation and from the Advanced translation editor (ATE).

Once I removed the French translation from Media translation, the text is no longer showing in French under the editor.

Or you can disable this option from WPML > Settings > media translation > Translate media library texts with posts: hidden link
And use Media translation for this.

Please use one method only, I hope this answered your questions,

Best,

August 9, 2024 at 1:27 am #16054620

ronaldT-5

Wow! Good work brother. To tell you the truth I never (or ever) use the Media Translation page. But, I have to admit, recently someone at WPML did ask me to translate from there to try to resolve another issue.

Boule de neige, hein???

I will try your suggestion, and see what happens. But, up to now, looking at a few pages, I suspect more images have this problem than the few images I was asked to translate that way. My problem may not be over if it happens again. I normally alway use the ATE.

Is there an easy way to find out which images I need to remove the translation from the WPML Media Translation page? Or, do I have to go their every single ATE pages one by one and try to spot any French text on the left hand-side?

And what should I do to see the correction to be reflected within ATE? Do I have to make a small change to the page? Clear caches?

Looking at a page within WPML->Media Translation page, I see two instances of the same image. One in English and the other in French. Is that normal? See attachment

Screenshot 2024-08-08 at 9.43.37 PM.jpg
August 9, 2024 at 7:37 am #16055267

ronaldT-5

The page where the duplicate image name is found is here:

hidden link

August 9, 2024 at 5:26 pm #16057393

Ilyes
Supporter

Languages: English (English ) French (Français )

Timezone: Pacific/Easter (GMT-05:00)

Hello again,

Having duplicates is normal in Media Translation, to better explain its usage, Media translation is the tool you use if you are looking to use different images or media files per languages,

So in short, it will detect every single media file you have on your site under one page for easier translation.

This is why if you are only looking to translate the Text of the media and not the media itself, you can use ATE by itself.

With that said, keep in mind that all these texts are hidden texts that usually users do no see unless they inspect the code or download the image, so you could correct this at your own pace, nothing major,

I understand that it could take time, since you only want to use ATE, I would simply remove the translated text from Media Translation for all pictures and then monitor my pages, if a page translation status is changed to "need update" then you can update it and resave it.

OR

You can disable this option from WPML > Settings > media translation > Translate media library texts with posts: hidden link , and use Media Translation for Image texts.

RECAP :

If you want to use ATE for future image text translation, yes, you might need to verify all your pages where these translated images are used

else, disable that option and use Media translation.

I hope that made it clearer,

August 9, 2024 at 6:23 pm #16057502

ronaldT-5

Yes, I ONLY use Media Translation when I need to use a different image in French.

I do not understand why I have to do all this work, since I never use Media Translation otherwise. Unless I figure out where the issue comes from, it is LIKELY going to occur again and again in the future.

There was one or two images, at the most, that a WPML asked me to translate there. Didn't he know about the issue??

I do not understand why you are now saying that language mixup in Media Translation is normal, when you previous said it was not. See attachment. The French left side is in English and being expected to translate it into English???

Screenshot 2024-08-09 at 2.21.35 PM.jpg