Background of the issue:
Issue Description:
When editing a post in Gutenberg, the tag search works correctly.
In Classic Editor, when entering a tag name, the AJAX request (ajax-tag-search) does not return some tags in Ukrainian.
For example, the tags "Ізраїль" and "Дональд Трамп" exist in the database and have correct translations, but they do not appear in the list of found tags in Classic Editor.
Other Ukrainian tags (e.g., “Меланія Трамп”) for the search term “Трамп” are found in the same interface without problems.
🔹 What We Have Already Checked:
✅ The tags exist in the database (wp_terms) and have correct relationships in wp_icl_translations.
✅ The tags appear as translated in WPML → Taxonomy Translation.
✅ Logging is enabled, and the SQL query shows that WPML filters out the missing tags in Classic Editor.
✅ Clearing WPML cache and regenerating taxonomies did not resolve the issue.
✅ Disabling all plugins except WPML and Classic Editor did not solve the problem.
✅ When disabling Classic Editor and switching to Gutenberg, everything works correctly, and all tags are displayed.
✅ Manually filtering ajax-tag-search (e.g., via wp_ajax_ajax-tag-search) did not resolve the issue.
🔹 What We Suspect:
WPML may be incorrectly determining the language in Classic Editor, causing it to filter tags based on the wrong language_code.
Classic Editor uses an older tag search mechanism (tagsdiv-post_tag), and WPML filters may not be applying properly.
The AJAX request in Classic Editor may not be passing the correct language, leading WPML to exclude certain tags.
🔹 Questions:
Are there any known fixes or recommendations for improving WPML compatibility with Classic Editor?
How can we manually intercept and correct WPML’s tag filtering in Classic Editor?
Is there an official patch planned for Classic Editor support in future WPML updates?
Thank you for your time and assistance! We look forward to your response.
I'm not longer able to access the test site that you had sent me credentials for. I have marked the next reply as private so that you can send me login credentials where I can continue troubleshooting. Please use the private fields to share the informatin securely. Thanks!
When I try these credentials, I get the message "ERROR: User can't find.". Please update the previous reply with working credentials and I'll log in and further troubleshoot. THanks!
Yes, these credentials worked. Please let me know if it is okay for me to install the Adminer plugin. I'd like to look into the database and see if I can find anything missing from the taxonomy terms or anything different from the term that is now showing in the classic editor.
I found that if you change the term so that it is different than the original taxonomy, then it will show up. FOr example, Меланія Трамп shows up in the Tags becuase there is a difference in languages (original is Мелания Трамп). Дональд Трамп is the same in both languages, so it seems this is causing it to not appear in the secondary language. I confirmed this by changing the term (added a number to it, then I removed after testing). When I add the number 1 to the taxonomy translation, it appears in the tag box.
However, I was not able to reproduce this on a test install. You can see here that on my test site, I have the same taxonomy "WPML Test" in both languages and it appears in the tag box on both languages. Feel free to login to the test site using this link: hidden link
I am going to send instructions in a next reply to get a copy of your site so that we can test further without interruption to your live site. In the meantime, please try changing the tag translation slightly so that it is not identical to the original term. This is intended to be a final solution, just something to use in the meantime until we can figure out a more permanent solution.
Thank you. That's an interesting observation. I'll be able to test it in a few hours. Changing the tag is not a good option as there are so many tags. I'll test with other words and will post
