Background of the issue:
I am trying to resolve an issue where non-English pages, such as Italian, are being overwritten with English content. This issue seems to occur when working with multiple tabs open, sometimes with one tab in English and another in Italian. I can roll back to the translated page using page revisions. Additionally, I noticed that a page was saved three times in two seconds, which seems unusual. Here is a link to a page where the issue can be seen: hidden link.
Symptoms:
Non-English pages are being overwritten with English content. The page revisions allow rolling back to the translated page. A page was saved three times in two seconds, which is unexpected.
Questions:
Are you aware of any scenarios where a translated page, such as Italian, can be overwritten by English content by mistake?
Can working with multiple tabs open in the backend in multiple languages be the root cause of this issue?
Let me rephrase the issue so I am sure I got it right:
“While editing pages, the Italian translation occasionally reverts to English. It tends to happen when editors keep several browser tabs open—some in English, some in Italian—causing near-simultaneous autosaves. The revision log even shows three saves within two seconds. Italian revisions can be restored.”
I need some clarification to better understand it:
1. Which translation editor is active for the affected pages (Classic, ATE, or “WordPress editor”)?
2. Is ‘Translate independently’ enabled on the overwritten Italian pages? https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/displaying-untranslated-content-on-pages-in-secondary-languages/
3. Do you see any “In Progress” translation jobs for those pages in WPML → Translations?
4. Are any Heartbeat/throttling plugins or server caching layers running?
In general, issues related to translated content being overwritten involved either mixing translation-editing methods (WPML editor ↔ WordPress/Elementor builder), an unfinished translation job still “owning” the post, or fast simultaneous autosaves triggered by several open tabs/Heartbeats.
So, you can try the following:
❌ Please make a full website backup before proceeding ❌
1.
• Ensure each page uses a single translation method end-to-end.
• If you need to edit in the WordPress/Gutenberg/Elementor editor, first open the Language box ➜ click “Translate independently”; or switch off WPML’s translation editor for that post type.
• Cancel any pending Translation-Editor jobs for that page in WPML → Translations.
• Re-save both language versions once (no content change) to recreate a clean translation pair.
2.
• When working simultaneously, avoid keeping the same post open in several tabs with different languages.
• Install a Heartbeat-control plugin or add in wp-config.php:
define( 'AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 300 ); and optionally limit Heartbeat to 60 s or pause on unfocused tabs.
1. Which translation editor is active for the affected pages (Classic, ATE, or “WordPress editor”)? - For Every page on our website we use WordPress Editor for translations.
3. Do you see any “In Progress” translation jobs for those pages in WPML → Translations? - No pages "In Progress"
4. Caching - we do have WPRocket enabled + the default caching with Cloudways.
I would really like to know if having multiple browsers opened in different languages could have caused this - We will refrain from doing this, I would just like to isolate the possible cause.
