Translations brake when using ‘&’

Hello Johan,

Could you please tell me what version of TranslatePress you are using?

I have tested using the latest version of TranslatePress, and I was not able to reproduce the issue on my end. I tested with Elementor versions 3.24.3, 3.24.4, and 3.24.7.

Could you check if the issue persists with only TranslatePress and Elementor active on the site, along with the default Twenty Twenty theme? If the issue still persists, could you try disabling the options one by one in the Elementor Settings – Features tab to check if the problem is related to one of these options?

Kind regards,

Anca

Hello Anca,

We’re using the latest versions of Elementor (3.24.7) en TP (2.8.7). Just updated both and still the translated text is not there anymore. If I put a new translation in the same widget it will save, but the ones which should already be there are gone. If I rollback Elementor to 3.24.3 the translations are back. If you check the changelog of Elementor, you see that they performed a security fix 3.24.4 – 2024-09-23: Improved code security enforcement in Heading and Counter widgets. Not sure how they did this, but it broke a lot of translations on several corporate sites. Maybe you can check with Elementor to fix this issue.

If you need screenshots, let me know.

Kind Regards,

Johan

• This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by Johan Stam.

Also asked Elementor about this change. Hereby their support reaction:

Hey Johan,

Thank you for reaching out to Elementor Support!

I understand that after updating to Elementor version 3.24.4, you’re experiencing issues with translations made using TranslatePress, particularly with headings that contain an ‘&’ symbol.

In version 3.24.4, Elementor applied security improvements in several widgets, including the Heading widget, to better sanitize and validate text inputs. This is to prevent potential vulnerabilities that could arise from untrusted input. These changes enforce stricter handling of special characters (like &) and HTML entities in text fields to enhance security.

Due to the stricter input validation, certain characters (such as &) in the original heading text may now be treated differently, causing the

We recommend reaching out to TranslatePress and sharing this information with them. They may need to adjust how they handle the sanitized content in Elementor widgets, particularly with special characters like &.

If you need further assistance or more details on the exact security updates, feel free to let us know. We’re here to help!

Best regards, 

Lior

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by Johan Stam.

Hey Johan,

Due to the update, ‘&’ is detected differently, which causes TranslatePress to recognize it as new content, resulting in the translation being lost.

You can enable the ‘Automatic Translation Memory’ option in TranslatePress Advanced Settings – Miscellaneous options to check if it suggests the translation.

Unfortunately, we don’t have another suggestion, given that the string is detected differently.

Thank you for your understanding!

Kind regards,

Anca