Number-only Automatic Translation (AT) functionality broken in Pre-translate Files in Studio 16.2.8.9097

Question

After updating to the latest version, number only Automatic Translation (AT) functionality is broken in Pre-translate (batch tasks). It does work when done manually , however the number only segments are NOT translated / converted when you use Batch Tasks > Pre-translate Files. How do I know it is the update that caused the bug? I am working on a financial report containing about 1,500 number only segments (financial figures). I noticed that after Pre-translate Files, these number-only segments were not converted 
 
 Instead the file should look as shown below, with all number-only segments in blue with the AT status: 
 
 I investigated all the settings and could not find any culprit. Then I had the idea to take the sdlxliff file to a different machine and to my surprise it all worked beautifully. I was going to try and compare all the settings screen by screen on these two machines to find out what is causing the problem and then I noticed the orange bell notification on the machine which worked fine (BTW these PCs are identical builds). It was the update notification to version 16.2.8.9097. I am not sure exactly which version was originally installed on this machine but I am pretty sure it was 16.1.X.XXXX. Anyway, I updated only to find out that the updated version will not convert number-only segments. 
 Then I decided to downgrade and went to the usual FTP site to download an earlier version: 
 
 Unfortunately the directory Studio2021_CUs is EMPTY! There are no installation files in there as, for some reason, they were all removed. 
 Can anyone help? I do not fancy manually converting thousands of number-only segments when Studio used to do this automatically when project was prepared.

Paul · Accepted Answer

Beatriz de Vega 
 Beatriz de Vega said: First, they show as 100% matches, instead of AT, which I would have preferred. 
 The reason for this is that you have a number in your TM already. So it is correctly shown as a 100% match. 
 Beatriz de Vega said: so visually you have a 100% match where the SC and TG do not match 
 The way Trados Studio has always worked is that the TM does not require every number you translate to be stored in the TM. It is enough for just one to be stored and then the number recognition feature will manage the rest. You can test this using a completely new TM. The first number you come across will probably show with an AT status and it will be stored in your TM. Every number after that will not be stored (unless it's a completely different type of number) and every recognised number will be shown as a 100% match. 
 Beatriz de Vega said: Is that normal behaviour? 
 Yes.

Oana Nagy · Answer

Hi Mariusz Lasota , 
 Can you please re-try using the Batch tasks> pre-translate function and while running the Settings in the pre-translate function, make sure the "Apply automated translation" is checked in the settings. 
 Let me know how it goes please! 
 Regards, 
 PS: Apologies, I was thinking of machine translation, but re-reading the post I realized it's not the case. Will check this and share my findings.

Paul · Answer

Mariusz Lasota 
 Mariusz Lasota said: I do not wish to confirm any number-only segments as this creates tons of junk in TM which causes lots of unacceptable problems later 
 It should not do. You only need to have one entry in the TM and that one entry will be used to recognise how a number should be handled for that language pair. You only get a TM full of junk if the numbers are not recognised by the TM at all. This isn't he case for the examples you have shown here. 
 The view internally is that right now there is nothing to repair. In Trados Studio these settings on the specific language pair determine how placeables are handled. This area has been hugely enhanced for many things in 2021 and it does ensure that we have more consistency around how results are handled and displayed. 
 
 We did discuss this with a developer yesterday, so if you still think you have a better case for the way numbers should be handled I think the best approach would be to create an idea in the ideas site and see if you can garnish some support: 
 https://community.rws.com/ideas/translation-productivity-ideas/i/trados-studio-ideas 
 Mariusz Lasota said: As I said my go-to place for installation files has been wiped clean. Where can I get previous patches now? 
 You have a few options. First you can use the locations in this KB: 
 https://gateway.sdl.com/apex/communityknowledge?articleName=000012378 
 Secondly, in your account you can also find the previous installers under "Archived Product Updates" in the "Downloads" section. In here you will find, for example, SR1 CU8 for 2021 and SR2 CU7 for 2019. 
 I hope that helps.

Paul · Answer

Mariusz Lasota 
 I just realised you said Polish into English... I should have read that properly! However, I recorded the test I just did with 2019 and 2021, perhaps it will help you with your task? I'll do it again quickly later from Polish and share a screenshot of what happened. 
 
 I hope that's helpful and will inspire you to find a way forward now without having to revert to search & replace in the target afterwards.

Jerzy Czopik · Answer

What you ask for is a blind trust in a software. I am not so far and would not trust even the best software to do what a human can do. A software must assume, that the source is written correctly, and we both know how bad source in terms of numbers can be. Especially when the text has been created in Poland. You can have dot, space or non-breaking space (which would be the correct option) as thousand separator. So for numbers-only segments any kind of pretranslation may be a big risk. In my case customer uses 10.12.21 not as a date and such numerical values must remain untouched. However, logically Studio treats these as date and translates to 10.12.2021... 
 In order to avoid all the hassle I use what is available in Studio since the very beginning: a regex-capable display filter. To show only segments containing no translatable text I just enter ^[\d\W]*$ &mdash; then select all, copy source to target and that's it. Maybe you need to run a replacement for separators, but that goes quick. Replace all . by # then all , by . and finally all # by ,

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Number-only Automatic Translation (AT) functionality broken in Pre-translate Files in Studio 16.2.8.9097

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