Studio 2021 - Package for Postediting has many empty target segments, but at the client they are filled in, nobody knows why in my Program they are empty, can anybody help with a solution?

Yesterday I had a really bad problem with Studio 2021. There are two columns, English on the left and German on the right, and since they are pre-translated with MT, the German column must also be full. So I do post-editing. For me, about 20 segments of German were empty, even though they were all there for the customer. In three different computers of three different colleagues there, everything was complete. They sent me three new packages, all the same. Then I had the service company for SDL Studio here in Sofia check it out, and they had the same file with 20 empty segments, just like mine, even on different computers and in three different program versions. Can you explain something like that, it must be a huge bug at Studio, nobody can explain what's going on. Then my customer sent me a bilingual review file so that I could at least fill the segments manually. I then updated the package with this file, and the segments in Studio still remained just as empty as before. What is going on here? This is not the first time I have had such problems, and no other translator who works for you has had these problems either. But: the service company here in Bulgaria had exactly the same problem as me. I would like the developers to be notified of this problem and to provide me with a solution, because my customer almost took the job away from me because of the problem. This is not allowed to happen!

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    I would like the developers to be notified of this problem and to provide me with a solution, because my customer almost took the job away from me because of the problem. This is not allowed to happen!

    Well... I guess a few things to note:

    1. you're using 2021 which is not really supported anymore so even if it is a bug it won't be fixed for that version
    2. you told us a nice story and provided zero details for us to actually comment on your problem

    If you can send us the offending package we'll happily take a look.  But only in the 2024 version.  Perhaps you can download and install the trial and see if you still have the same problem with that version.  If you do then you'll have proper attention.

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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  • Thanks for your reply, the package was now tested here in Bulgaria in the Trados service company with versions 2021, 2022 and 2024. All of them had the same problem with partly empty target segments, and it were the same segments in all versions. So now you have reason to take a look into it, as you said.

    I asked the company also to test it in version 2019, because at the agency in 2019 these segments are not empty, but the test also with 2019 turned out to be with the same empty segments as in all the other versions. So it seems that Studio acts different on different machines, which should not be, or what is it?

    The agency had to fill in the segments manually finally, and then they were there also in my computer. They use DeepL for machine translation.

    Do you still need or want the package that you can see what might have been the reason?

    It was not the first time that I had empty segments, but it was the first time that they had to fill them in manually. Until now it always worked when they sent me a new package.

    BTW you wrote "you told us a nice story and provided zero details for us to actually comment on your problem" this is not the case, or maybe I am not an IT specialist and have no idea what information you need to comment on it? I told everything in my post, and the use of version 2021 is maybe also related that as a freelance translator I simply do not have the funds for such expenses like an update? I am not employed and have no constant money flow as an employee, but there is also the reason that it is not recommendable to buy new versions because they often have bugs. I was not able to use 2021 for 2 years because of a bug in the concordance search which did not allow me to use it. Since then I decided never to update again on the first occasion. I did a trial for 2024, but that was because of a problem with the termbase and TM, it was before I had the problem with empty target segments, so my chance for a trial is already over, there is no second one possible.

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    It was not the first time that I had empty segments,

    Depending on the system used by your client, there are several scenarios explaining the empty segments:

    - If there are several high matches in the TM for a particular segment, let’s say 95%, then the “system” may leave the segment empty, so the human translator will decide which match is better.

    - The number of requests per second sent to DeepL exceeded the maximum allowed. This should have been taken into account by the “system”, but it's a possibility.

    - The DeepL account was deactivated (for example, because the invoice was not paid). It’s your client's responsibility, but it may happen. Actually it happened to a client of mine. Grinning

    BTW you wrote "you told us a nice story and provided zero details for us to actually comment on your problem" this is not the case

    Sorry to disagree. Problems are solved with information related to them.

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  • Thanks for your reply, but none of your mentioned scenarios could apply, because in all of these scenarios the client himself would have empty segments.

    As for your remark "Sorry to disagree. Problems are solved with information related to them.", again I have to underline that I provided all information, BUT I am a total lay person what concerns, IT, so I am not able to know what other information I should provide. This has to be defined by IT specialist, this is something I am not able to do as an IT lay person. I provided everything I had, to my very best knowledge.

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    Thanks for your reply, but none of your mentioned scenarios could apply, because in all of these scenarios the client himself would have empty segments.

    They could all apply, but we may never know. The issue is on your client’s' side, so they can ask in this forum what’s going on.

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  • I think I now have the reason for which they were empty. Recently I got a word file from my customer and I did not see any text in it, only paragraph breaks, line counters, page counters etc. also my wife did not see any text in it. We both have the newest system and newest Office package, and the customer has an older version. We had hours before we managed to get it in such way that we could see the text. Only in my mobile office app on the phone I was able to see any text from that file.

    From this new experience I am sure that this is not a problem of Studio, but from the underlaying Word file. Only, how to resolve this one. Did you ever have such experience with invisible text in Word files which was in fact there?

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  • I think I now have the reason for which they were empty. Recently I got a word file from my customer and I did not see any text in it, only paragraph breaks, line counters, page counters etc. also my wife did not see any text in it. We both have the newest system and newest Office package, and the customer has an older version. We had hours before we managed to get it in such way that we could see the text. Only in my mobile office app on the phone I was able to see any text from that file.

    From this new experience I am sure that this is not a problem of Studio, but from the underlaying Word file. Only, how to resolve this one. Did you ever have such experience with invisible text in Word files which was in fact there?

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