I am writing to raise an urgent complaint regarding a serious issue I experienced while setting up WPML on my WordPress website.
Website: hidden link
During the WPML setup process, I reached the AI Translation step. After continuing with the setup, my website content was removed or reset, and the site appeared to revert back to the original theme/demo layout instead of keeping my updated pages and design.
This has caused a major problem because I had recently completed a full redesign and content update for my website, including the homepage and main pages such as Work With Me, SSPN, Speaking, Insights, Media, and Contact.
The issue affected my live website and forced me to restore a previous backup to recover the site.
I need your urgent support to understand:
Why WPML caused the website to reset or revert to the original theme/demo content.
Whether WPML changed the homepage assignment, language version, page structure, or theme content.
How I can safely use WPML without losing or overwriting my existing English website.
What settings I should avoid before translating the site into Arabic.
Whether there is a safe step-by-step method to translate only selected pages without affecting the live website.
This is very concerning because I installed WPML to translate my website, not to overwrite or reset my existing work.
Please treat this as urgent and advise me on the safest way to proceed without damaging the restored website again.
Welcome to WPML support. This is indeed a concerning matter, as WPML does not touch the original page and post language and works on translations.
So I think this warrants an investigation. What I suggest at the time being is that you contact your hosting service provider and ask for the staging/copy version of the website.
Then, please set the next reply as private and provide the login information for the staging/copied website.
I will personally go ot the website and try to install WPML and set it up for English and Arabic and see what the result is.
That way, if the issue happens, I will have an environment that I can work on without the fear of breaking a live website.
I'd be happy to check, but you did not give the login information of the website copy so I can check. May I ask you to set the next reply as private and provide the login information so I can check the website?
As mentioend please make sure it is the staging/Copied version so I can do investigation.
Thank you for the login information. I finished the WPML setup, and indeed, it had an issue that even if you went to WordPress Dashboard> Pages, you would see no pages.
There seemed to be a database malfunction during the setup in the first place and as the language information is set once, no matter how many times you would install WPML, it would show the same.
I followed the steps below to fix the issue:
- Go to "WordPress Dashboard > WPML > Support > Troubleshooting (link)".
- Click the "Set Language Information" button and wait for the process to finish.
- It fixed the issue.
Now as I used a temporary Registration Key for WPML I removed it. You can go to WordPress Dashboard > WPML > Translation Dashboard and you will see a section at the top to complete your registration there.
It looks okay now, and I am still working on the staging website to test everything properly before applying anything to the live website.
I have three questions:
How can I place the language switcher at the top/header of the website as a simple switcher, ideally just a flag or E/A?
How can I translate the homepage and the menu? I cannot seem to find it in the translation options or pages.
When I install and activate WPML on the actual live website, what exact steps should I follow to make sure nothing is deleted, reset, or affected like what happened before? I want to avoid any issue with the live website pages, design, content, menus, or settings.
Kindly advise on the safest process before I apply anything to the live website.
Thank you for your reply. Would you please watch this video?
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Summary
This video provides a detailed walkthrough on how to add and configure a language switcher using the WPML plugin in a WordPress dashboard. It covers navigating to the WPML languages menu, adding the language switcher block to a header template, customizing its appearance, and troubleshooting common issues such as database malfunctions by using the WPML troubleshooting tools.
Action Items
- Add the language switcher block to the header template via the WPML languages menu.
- Customize the language switcher appearance using the block options (flags, names).
- Use WPML troubleshooting tools to fix language display issues after setup.
Thank you for the video. I watched it and followed the steps on the staging website.
I tried to add the language switcher inside the header template, but I am facing one issue. The switcher appears either above the navigation menu or below it, not aligned properly in the same row with the menu.
Please see the attached screenshot.
Could you kindly advise how I can place the language switcher correctly at the top/header area, ideally aligned with the navigation menu on the right side, as a simple flag or E/A switcher?
The problem was that there was a CSS forcing the language switcher to take 100% width. I added a custom CSS to WordPress Dashboard > WPML > Languages > Language switcher options > Additional CSS:
body .wpml-language-switcher-block {width: auto !important}
And now it will get the width of the parent row. So you can do whatever you want with the block in the template.
