Translations lost after updating target string list

Question

In my Passolo 2018 project I updated a target string list which was 100% translated and got a warning:
"
The current update is going to delete 66 strings from the string list.
Do you want to continue?
...
"
I clicked [Yes] and all translations were lost. All 66 strings had been replaced by new strings with the same source phrase as before. Each target phrase was initialized with the source phrase, like in a new string.

I'm pretty sure that the strings in the affected .NET assembly were not changed. No new strings, none changed, none deleted, and the resource IDs were unchanged.

But I noticed that column "Number" in the target list view shows different numbers than before. For example, the string with ID "DESC_CFGVW_BIO_CONFIG" had "Number" = 79 before, but 130 after updating the string list.

What can I do to preserve the translations?

Adrian Maniu · Answer

Normally such changes will only show if the source file was changed. Maybe the resource that holds those string was changed? 
 If you can share the source files and the LPU you can raise a support case and ask the support team to identify what is changed.

Achim Herrmann · Answer

Where have you heard or read that this is a known issue? I would be interested in it. 
 When saying " No new strings, none changed, none deleted, and the resource IDs were unchanged." it might not be the full story. The .NET parser is creating something called a full qualified identifier and beside string IDs the full resource ID and other data is used for it. Just re-compiling will not result into the described issues, but developers are something doing a refactoring in their modules and this changes the identifier resulting into the observed behavior. 
 Passolo doesn't know what developers have refactored, as Visual Studio is not storing any refactoring information that could be used by Passolo. So Passolo is creating new string entries. The work-arounds were already mentioned in your post. You can use Leverage when the old project is still available or pre-translate from recycle bin as TM when you updated the only existing project. 
 As best practice, developers should notify localization managers when .NET modules are undergoing any refactoring.

Elmar Pohl · Answer

In the meantime I have found out a bit more. It appears that I made a mistake by updating my source files with assemblies that had already been passed once through Passolo. The first stage in our translation process is a translation from English to English ("developer English" to proof-read English). Thinking that proof-read English was better than our "developer English", I used the target files of this first stage to update the source files. This caused the problem. If I update the source files with assemblies that come directly from the build (before localization), the problem does not occur. I was also wrong about the influence of Passolo batch mode. With the wrong source files I reproduced the problem in batch mode as well. I still don't know what my Passolo project does to the strings so that they are not recognized as the same strings when re-read, and whether we should change something about our .lpu or our source. But the question is not really urgent, now that I know which pitfall to avoid.

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Translations lost after updating target string list