Lost Credits During Updating of QA site

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

Problem:
The client frequently updates their QA server with data from the production environment, which involves changing URLs and reactivating WPML. This process often results in site keys becoming inactive and a loss of translation credits. The client seeks a way to synchronize the QA and production environments without losing credits and to recover lost credits.
Solution:
1. Ensure that the QA domain name remains consistent when reactivating WPML to avoid unnecessary site key changes.
2. Navigate to WPML > Support > Troubleshooting Link and share the Advanced Translation Editor ID for both production and staging sites.
3. We have resolved issues on our translation server that were causing lost credits and multiple activations with the same domain name. This should prevent similar issues in the future.
4. Always generate a new sitekey when activating WPML on a new domain to avoid conflicts.

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Tagged: ATE

This topic contains 12 replies, has 0 voices.

Last updated by dawnV 7 months, 2 weeks ago.

Assisted by: Kor.

Author	Posts
August 27, 2025 at 1:18 pm #17352037
dawnV	Background of the issue: I frequently update our QA server with an updated version of our DB and files from the production environment. This involves downloading the production DB and performing a global search and replace to switch the production URLs to QA URLs. After uploading to the QA environment and reactivating WPML through the wizard screens, it becomes difficult to understand the instructions. We sometimes manage to relink the environments to their site keys, but often one of our site key accounts becomes inactive, forcing us to generate a new site key. The ideal solution is to have the production WPML account link with the QA WPML account to share credits and translate content on production or QA for testing purposes. Symptoms: Sites often become invalid in WPML, requiring frequent reissuing of new site keys, resulting in lost credits that don't return to the general pool. Recently, after updating site keys on production, we are missing about 6.7k credits that have not returned to the pool. Questions: Can you check for any old credits applied to old site keys and return them for us? How can we safely resynchronize our QA environment without losing credits and running into these issues again?
August 28, 2025 at 1:25 am #17353109
Kor	Thanks for contacting us. It shouldn't matter which sitekey you used if the QA domain name remains the same. Since you noticed the lost credits, I will check it for you. Could you tell which domain you are working on?
August 29, 2025 at 12:48 pm #17358155
dawnV	hidden link is production and qa.instron.com is the qa environment.
August 29, 2025 at 12:50 pm #17358160
dawnV	Our production environment is now listed as inactive again. Can you detect any issues on your end why this keeps happening? Meanwhile in our WP Admin, we are seeing credits (see attached screenshot).
August 29, 2025 at 2:33 pm #17358397
Kor	Thanks for your reply. I think I know what's going on there. On both production and staging site, please navigate to WPML > Support > Troubleshooting Link > Share the Advanced Translation Editor ID with me here.
September 2, 2025 at 7:24 pm #17367482
dawnV	Did you mean the Automatic Translation Account id? 0c6173be-2de0-42d1-975b-03b0e24c5873#NhVM4r1VJwqTNnA6Psc9Qwtt
September 3, 2025 at 9:09 am #17369076
Kor	Thanks for your reply. Yes, that's correct. May I know which ATE ID domain you shared? I need both the production and qa environment ATE ID.
September 3, 2025 at 10:35 am #17369768
dawnV	Hi, that was production's. For QA the ID is: cd2af909-0b74-456c-9b84-1aca58904819#zV6nCI4AHK5Cczs5Xkhk7gtt
September 3, 2025 at 5:17 pm #17372095
Kor	Thanks for your reply. Ok, I've made adjustments on our translation server. Could you please generate a new sitekey for both sites so that I can check to see if it breaks anything?
September 3, 2025 at 8:01 pm #17372528
dawnV	OK we've generated new sitekeys for both QA and Prod. We were able to link them and right now we are seeing them share the credits. Can you explain to us to happened? will we need to keep changing sitekeys again and again? this process is frustrating.
September 4, 2025 at 6:01 am #17373127
Kor	Thanks for your reply. There were some issues with our translation server and I've corrected it. This issue should not happen again in the future.
September 5, 2025 at 12:08 pm #17379316
dawnV	Can you shed more light on the errors? Is there anything we can do on our end to make sure it doesn't happen again?
September 5, 2025 at 3:40 pm #17379956
Kor	Thanks for your reply. There isn't anything you can do on your end to prevent this. But I've corrected the issue by removing the multiple activations with the same domain name. Please make sure to always generate a new sitekey when activating WPML on a new domain.
September 9, 2025 at 3:40 pm #17387833
dawnV	ok, thanks for your help.