Forum Archive - Test Installation

Hi, I am about to install and test the PRO version for my site. I like to test all such upgrades on my test site prior to installing on my live site. My test site is stored in a folder named /test under my live site. Will the install work on the test site, or only at the root of my live site? Also, once I install on my live site I want to configure the selector the way yours is on your gTranslate site. I like the combined flag and language in a dropdown selector. I think that is both the clearest and the most effective. How do I configure this style? I did not see that anywhere in the FREE version. Ken

Ok, it did not work on the test site, nor on the live site. I have switched gTranslate back to FREE so the live site continues to work. My site is https://sim-x.net When enabled in simply gave an error that page did not exist after switching languages. I am guessing I am missing one or more of the required server elements. I could not verify the server requirements (ie. ioncube, Curl, JSON, etc.) because I do not know how.

Hi, Please read our documentation for step-by-step instructions: https://gtranslate.io/docs/57-gtranslat ... umentation If you are having problems installing it, please send us FTP and admin backend access using our contact us form on our home page and we will install it for you. Later when it is installed we will help you to modify your language selector. Thanks!

Why the backend access? In Joomla is it not only to change the 2 settings under the gTranslate module for operate with PRO version and the REDIRECT translation method? At least that is all your documentation says needs to be done. I will create an FTP access account and send shortly, but I am sure it is because of the ioncube thing mentioned in your documentation. That could be a problem because my hosting provider is not very cooperative! Ken

Note, it has already been fully installed exactly as per your directions in your documentation. I have simply switched the 2 joomla settings back so it will continue to work without generating the page not found error.

I'm not sure I understand what exactly you want currently. If you want it to be installed correctly on your live website I have asked for access details, if there is something else, please explain. We do not install the plugin on testing environments.

Can you install the ioncube that is required? If not, I am not sure you can help! As I explained already, it is already installed on the live site, but has been switched back to FREE settings to keep the site operational. I am asking why you need Joomla access if all that is done in there is change those 2 settings. I never give joomla access. Your documentation was clear and I followed them exactly, so you should only have to verify the server changes and requirements via the temporary FTP access I will give you. Is this correct?

There is nothing to verify. When I go to https://sim-x.net/ru/ I see 404 error page which means that you don't have Pro version installed. It is not installed correctly. If you don't have ionCube we will try to install it if possible. Thanks!

I just sent FTP details. Joomla to follow.

Joomla details sent, please complete ASAP and let me know as soon as done.

Our specialist will try to install and let know the outcome. Thanks!

Guys, I spoke too soon. My site does not work at all after you upgraded to PRO. The first translation of the home page looked ok. None of the other pages translate and many pages end in page not found errors. The menus and page handling is all wrong. It jumps between languages for no apparent reason and my search forms most end in page not found error when switched away from English. Did you test the site? You could not have! You could not have missed all the errors. This is really not good. This is the reason I like to test on my test site! Guys, this is a LIVE site!! I am going to switch it back to FREE and hopefully it works again, otherwise I am going to a backup. Am I going to face such errors when I make changes and additions to my site. Why is this so bad? I am also seeing that the PRO version is extremely slow! The FREE version was much much faster in switches. Why? Ken

EMERGENCY. How do I switch back, you guys have totally screwed up my site!! Come on, why did you not test the site? Is this what you do with every install? I cannot leave it like this, this is a LIVE site!

The site will not even switch back to ENGLISH. Come on, are you guys for real!! I need a refund and I want this PRO crap off my site. I am restoring a backup right now. Sorry guys, but this is so un-necessary, all you needed to do is test the site. And, not just the home page. You needed to go back and forth. It translates to another language but will not go back. The FREE one worked flawlessly, how can this one be such crap!

Ok, I am back up from the FULL restore. It is a good thing I took a full backup before sending you the FTP and Joomla details! I am sorry, but I had no choice but to restore. Now, I know you won't even be able to see how bad it was. But honestly better that and I lose my payment than my LIVE site being garbage for the entire weekend! I am not doing this again on my LIVE site, never! Now, I am formally requesting a refund for the PRO version. Then, I will switch back to FREE that worked great. And, because I am fair and absolutely do not like to take advantage of FREE software and, other than tonight, great support you have provided me, please just refund me 50% and consider the 50% as payment for continuing to use your FREE version with support. Sorry, but until you can prove to me the PRO version will work flawlessly on my test site you are not touching my LIVE site again. Again, sorry, but my site was never so messed up as it was tonight after the installation by your specialist. I will certainly consider the ENTERPRISE version down the road when my traffic increases, but it will take a lot of convincing to get me to try PRO again on my site. I hope you understand. You have an absolute gem of a product in the FREE version, it is beyond my comprehension how a simple PRO upgrade install can go so horribly wrong! Either your specialist is a total idiot or the PRO version is bad! I know no other possibility. Ken

Hi Ken, Sorry for the troubles caused. I feel like you panicked and did what you did. You could simply turn off the plugin if you felt that there is something wrong or give us a chance to understand and fix your issues. Anyway, we can offer you 100% refund for Pro version or an exchange with 1 year Enterprise service which is not a software and won't cause issues on your server. Let me know. Thanks!

Um, yes I panicked, this is a LIVE site. I have customers using this site! I cannot have it unusable, even for a few hours! That is why my original preference was for testing and setup only on my test site, but you guys said you do not install on test sites! Well this is why you need to, otherwise installs can end in disaster. Honestly, on my test site you can take as long and make as many mistakes as you like, no problem. There are no users I need to worry about. But my LIVE site, sorry, but not there. So yes I panicked. You said all I needed to do was disable the PLUGIN. What plugin? Of all the times I used and configured your product there was only a module. No PLUGIN existed. I tried switching the module back to the FREE settings but it did not work. The documentation I read said nothing about a PLUGIN and prior to you guys doing the install there was no PLUGIN. After I restored my backup there is now no PLUGIN. So where did a PLUGIN come from? Honestly, how would I possibly know to disable a PLUGIN that I did not know about? The first thing that should have been sent to me, if you installed a new plugin, was documentation on it. It's name, it's settings, everything! Even if you said to me that should I see any problems disable this new plugin by doing XYZ. Then I would have known and could have simply disabled it, and I would not have panicked. So, sorry I panicked. You have a great product. The FREE version works great on my site after the restore. Let me think about what to do going forward. I want to continue with this and likely will take you up on the ENTERPRISE offer, but I will need to test it fully first. However, I am still considering staying with my offer to you of staying with the FREE because I know it works, but not for FREE, at my 50% offer to you. I do not like using FREE software on principle, I know it cost money to make and support what you offer. I am fair. My only hesitation on the FREE is that I do not like that it translates the input fields on forms. BTW, the first check I ran on the PRO was to load one of my forms and check if it translated input fields. It did as well! I thought you said PRO defaulted to not translate input fields? Then when I submitted the form to do a search I got my first PAGE NOT FOUND and it was down hill from there. I will get back to you at the end of the weekend. My site is fine now running the FREE version. Ken

Hi Ken, I'm sure that if you had followed our instructions on our documentation page: https://gtranslate.io/docs/57-gtranslat ... umentation you would know everything about the plugin and configuration. Anyways, thanks for your offer, but we also have principles, if customer doesn't like our software we make a refund. As I mentioned Pro or Enterprise are not going to translate input fields by default. Since Enterprise version is not a software and you are not going to install anything on your server there is no need to worry about a test environment. You will add a subdomain for each language and can make tests on it. Let me know. Thanks!

Ok, no I did not see this documentation, and I am glad you sent this link. Now I know why I could not get the PRO version to work when I installed it myself. I did not use your online documentation I used the documentation in the file you sent. The email that was sent to me with the PRO version for my site explicitly told me to follow the instructions in the attached ZIP file, so I did. It is similar but not exactly the same. See below the extract from the INSTALLATION.TXT file in the ZIP file you sent me, For Joomla 1.5.x version use plg_gtranslate.zip For Joomla 1.6.x & 1.7.x versions use plg_gtranslate-1.7.zip For other websites including Joomla 1.0.x, WordPress, Drupal and Magento you need to follow directions in general/readme.txt file. After installing it on Joomla: I am using Joomla 3.2.3, so according to this TXT file I should simply proceed to follow the directions in the README file, which is what I did. Hence, I never installed a plugin. As per the ZIP file instructions "plg_gtranslate.zip" was only for Joomla 1.5.x and "plg_gtranslate-1.7.zip" was only for Joomla 1.6 and 1.7! That is why for me there was no PLUGIN. I never installed one. So, now I understand why it did not work and why your specialist installed the PLUGIN. So we were both wrong, but I only could follow what I was told to follow. Again, sorry for the confusion. I will get back to you shortly, most likely it will be the ENTERPRISE option. Thank you. Ken

Also, please know I am only pointing out the confusion so you can address it for others. The ZIP file documentation is clearly not correct when compared to what you have online. I know now that I should have installed "plg_gtranslate.zip" when I did my PRO install and if I did I would have fully known about the plugin. I am calm now, and all is good. You have a great product and honestly your support is great, top notch actually! Yes, there are some issues to address, but we all have issues to address. I will go with your ENTERPRISE offer, no refund required. I can test it as I see fit on my test site myself, so all is good. I am paying you for all your efforts so my principles remain intact, as do yours. Hence, all is good. And, please, do not worry, I will be posting a good review of you, your product and most importantly your support. Ken

Thank you Ken for the note. We will fix the confusion on our side. I'll make the upgrade for you and send instructions to your email and let you know here. Thanks!

I have just sent email with instructions to configure Enterprise to your ken@e****ds.ca email. I have noticed that you are using SSL for your site. We are providing a self-signed SSL certificates and you may see SSL warning on your browser when you try to translate a page currently, for example https://es.sim-x.net . You may add an exception in your browser and test. If you like it, it will be required to purchase a wildcard SSL license for *.sim-x.net and provide it to us, so we can set it up for you. There is also a cheaper alternative. You may use Cloudflare and get SSL also for language subdomains to not see the warning message on the browser. Let me know if you need assistance. Thank you!

I am testing the ENTERPRISE on my test site. I have added all the CNAME entries through my hosting interface. I have also upgraded my SSL certificate to a wildcard *.sim-x.net certificate. However, I am still seeing the browser warning whenever I choose another language. Not sure why. Also, I am noticing that some of the text is prefaced with a "%" sign and does not get translated. Any idea why that would be? The FREE version translates this text just fine. You can see it here, https://sim-x.net/test which is my test site. It is an exact clone copy of my live site, but no users will use it. Ken

Also, I forgot to say THANK YOU.

Hi, You will need to send SSL certificates to us, so we can install them on our server for you for subdomains. You can send it to [email protected] email address. % sign means that the text is queued in our translation and will be translated soon. Everything will be translated over time when we discover your new content for translation. Thanks!

Sorry, but I have no idea how to copy and send an SSL certifcate as an attachment. How do I do that? Ken

This may be a stupid question but if the FREE version is translating these items fine, why not use these translations to power the ENTERPRISE version until these items actually clear the queue you mentioned?

I am testing the ENTERPRISE and it also does not work properly! I am running the FREE on my LIVE site side by side with the ENTERPRISE on my test site to help test. Again, the FREE works beautifully, the ENTERPRISE not so good. I already raised about the fact that the ENTERPRISE is flagging about 90% of the content on my pages with a % and never translating it. That is a big enough problem. But now I am seeing that when it comes to proper page navigation it, though way better than PRO, is also far from correct. My site has content that is restricted and only accessible with an account. When I login in ENGLISH everything works fine and can access all the content I should be able to. When I translate to another language it triggers a new LOGIN requirement but never allows access to the content. The FREE version handles this flawlessly! I am going to be speaking frankly here, why don't you simply change your business model and charge for the FREE version instead? If I put ENTERPRISE on my live site right now none of my users could login to their content if they ever change to another language! Ken

As further info, with the ENTERPRISE version there is no way to LOGIN to my site under any means when displaying any language other than ENGLISH. One can only LOGIN in English and that LOGIN is lost whenever you switch language. Hence, no way to view any restricted content other than in ENGLISH. Note, on the positive side, I can confirm on ENTERPRISE that it does not translate the content of input fields by default. That is good to see. Ken

Hi, With Free you translate only one page on the fly and it is not being saved anywhere. Enterprise translates in parallel many pages of your website and saves it for future delivery, so search engines can index your translated pages. You just need to give it little bit more time to discover content on your website and translate. You shouldn't be worried about that over time everything will get translated starting from popular items. Basically if you do not want to gain from SEO and do not want impoved translations quality and manual edit ability there is no need to switch to Pro or Enterprise. If you describe step-by-step what you do to login I can see what is going on and suggest how to fix the issue. It is not a right statement that you cannot login on a translated pages. Also, if you want to keep login state on all languages you need to set a cookie domain for your site to be .sim-x.net with the dot prefix. When you bought SSL certificate they should have send it to you. You need to send what you got to me. Thank you!

I am sorry, but it absolutely is the case that I cannot login under any other language than English. I have tested everything, and I know. How can you possibly say that if you have not even tried? You are welcome to go to https://sim-x.net/test and create your own account and see what happens. It is easy to see the problem. Users can login to my site using FB, LinkedIn, Google+ or standard username/password entry. All methods tie into the standard Joomla login so nothing is strange there. I use an extension called EasyProfile to manage all of this plus ACL Manager to manage all user and group access permissions. Standard stuff really. Under Enterprise version no LOGIN can be made unless in English and once you login in English your login is not observed under other languages. Honestly, if there is more to be done, like the cookie thing referred to, this should all be clearly defined upfront as part of setup and install for the ENTERPRISE version. LOGIN under Joomla is standard stuff and management of access across languages is also standard and expected. What other things need to be setup that have not been defined? Ken

Honestly, I am very glad I am figuring this out on my test site rather than my live site, so all is good. This means it is all risk free! And as long as it is risk free, I have absolutely no problem working through this stuff and even helping you to work this stuff out, we all benefit. so please, test away, and ask any questions you want. Ken

Hi, I have created an account and logged in in Spanish version of your website. Can you please write step-by-step what I need to do to experience the issue you describe? Please understand that we cannot pre define everything. But when you ask for a feature we try to make it happen. So if you want your session to be shared on all subdomain languages you need to set a correct cookie domain. Since you are making tests you are navigating from language to language and notice that you are not staying logged in. In real life people will stick with one language and do not change languages so often. Since you have added the subdomains in DNS level it works everywhere even on your live site. I already mentioned that. If you do announce about the subdomain (you do not configure language selector to work with Enterprise), people will not know and not enter the translations. Thank you!

It is exactly as you suggest, switching languages after you login, and not staying logged in. That is the problem. I do not see the same behaviour when using the FREE version, with it you can login in one language and switch freely. Why in FREE can you move between languages but not in PRO or ENTERPRISE? Is it the case that gTranslate Enterprise was written assuming the user would create his account in, and always use, the same language? If I need to create a cookie to accomplish what I am saying then I will do that, but that is not something I have ever done before. I will have to research how to do that. The extensions and tools i buy normally look after such things themselves. Honestly, I am not looking for new features, but clearly I have a different perspective than you. In my industry, and the industry my site serves (aviation), moving between languages is common place. In the international aviation community the industry standard language is English, and everyone must operate in English. Plus, they will have a mother tongue depending upon where they were born or grew up and this may not be English. So, I would expect a user could move freely between English (the standard) and any ONE of the other available languages. But, no, not necessarily freely between all languages. I am sorry but my seeing the FREE version handle the switching between languages so well just made me think that the paid ones would also. That was clearly an incorrect assumption on my part and was my mistake. Regarding the translations, forgive me but this is new to me and I will not put it on my live site until I am sure it can handle what will be expected by my users. If the translations are not there but yet it needs to be LIVE for the translations to be created then for my site that will not work. They need to be there from the outset, which is why I suggested why not drive initial translations with what is being done in the FREE version? Then over time the better translations will get created, and the service improves with each subsequent use. If there is nothing to start with then there is no reason to implement it and the process cannot start and hence cannot move forward towards improving. But that is just my differing opinion I guess. I am not following what you are saying about entering the subdomains in DNS and even working on my LIVE site. How can it? My live site is still using the FREE version and it is translating fine the same sentences that the Enterprise is skipping over (those with the leading %). I do not think you mentioned anything about this before, but if you did, my mistake. It probably did not register because I do not understand it. Anyway thanks. Ken

Free and paid versions are completely different and they use different architecture and approach. I could answer to your question, but it is very technical and I'm sure that you are not interested to go into technical details. Here you will find how to set a cookie domain: http://docs.joomla.org/J3.2:Global_configuration it is very easy to do. I understand that you want it to happen and I thought that you would just search how to change cookie domain and find the solution yourself, so I didn't go into the details. I understand that you are not a webmaster and shouldn't know all the technical aspects, but if you have any questions I'm always ready to answer them. The free version works per request and does the translation then forgets until there is another request. While Pro and Enterprise save the translations and make it possible for you to make modifications. We need to discover your content to be able to translate. You can speed up the discovery process by manually browsing your website in different languages, so everything will be discovered and get translated. If you even don't do that, it is not an issue, crawlers who crawl your website will do the job for you. The GTranslate Free version you are using is a language switcher only in case you have configured it to work with Pro or Enterprise version. However if you manually enter in the address bar es.sim-x.net your site will get translated by Enterprise version. Please let me know what you want to achieve and I'll try to make it happen for you. As I understand you want your website to get translated and indexed in search engines. If that is the case, then it is set up and ready to use (except the SSL which you need to send, so I can setup for you), you can turn on Enterprise option in free module and make manual corrections to your translations. Let me know. Thank you!

Yes, that is exactly what I want to achieve, translating and SEO, and thanks for sparing me the technical details, I am absolutely not a webmaster! Thanks for the link, and i already read through it. It looks very easy, so I will do that tonight. Then I will try your suggestion of speeding the discovery by browsing myself. Honestly, you have a good product and it fits well with what i am trying to achieve so we will get there. I am just a little slow sometimes. Thanks. Ken

Just to confirm, the cookie settings worked great and now login remains valid across languages on my test site! Took me a little while to get the settings correct because I found that all the Joomla documentation is light on examples. But eventually I got it correct and it works great. Thanks again.

Good to hear that. Let me know when you send the SSL certificate, so I can configure it for you on our side. Thanks!