Autopropagation Issue Causing Unpaid Rework – Need Urgent Attention

This is not a question but a formal complaint.

I’m currently working on a revision task for a project with heavy repetition. I enabled Autopropagation for 100% matches to confirmed segments, as I usually do. However, I noticed that segments began autopropagating to non-100% matches, which is not the expected behavior.

In the attached image, you can clearly see inconsistencies in the source text caused by this faulty autopropagation. This issue has resulted in multiple rounds of rework—none of which will be compensated by the client.

This situation is not only exhausting but entirely demoralizing. I feel trapped in a workflow that punishes diligence and wastes hours of labor. I sincerely ask the Trados team to look into this malfunction and provide an explanation or fix.

This kind of software behavior is unacceptable in a professional environment.

Screenshot showing a list of segments in Trados Studio with source and target text columns. Some segments are marked as 100% matches, but inconsistencies are visible in the source text.



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[edited by: RWS Community AI at 6:59 PM (GMT 1) on 30 Apr 2025]
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Parents
  • Screenshot showing a list of items with IDs like 36MM3_WP, 36MM4_DL_1, and 36MM4_HP, all with a status of 100% and labeled InsertarPieza_CajaEngranajes_1.

    Screenshot showing a list of items with IDs like F12 repeated multiple times, all with a status of 100% and labeled InsertarPieza_CajaEngranajes_1.

    Screenshot showing a list of items with IDs like Kistler_ResetError_1, MES_SetWorkResult_1, and SEP_45MM1_HP, all with a status of 100% and labeled InsertarPieza_CajaEngranajes_1.

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    [edited by: RWS Community AI at 8:12 PM (GMT 1) on 30 Apr 2025]
  •  

    I think you seem to have at least two problems.  First all of these strings are alphanumeric so this means Studio will AT them all unless you disable that.  Second problem is you seem to have some strange setting I can't actually replicate because you are getting identical matches for every string with a completely different source and I can't achieve that at all.

    Please can you share screenshots of your relevant settings?

    • TM language resources
    • TM Search settings (from your project settings)
    • Auto-Substitution settings
    • Auto-propagation settings

    Also can you confirm your workflow for getting to this stage?  How were the files handled... did you do the entire project on your own?

    Lastly... it would be good to know what version of Trados Studio you are using, and maybe how many TMs are in your project?

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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  • Hello Paul,

    Thank you, and apologies for the delayed response. That project left me completely drained, and I’ve only just regained the energy to investigate what might have gone wrong.

    I resolved the issue at the time by working hard rather than smart — I disabled autopropagation and reviewed the segments manually, one by one. However, I’d still like to understand what triggered this behavior so I can prevent it in the future.

    I’m using SDL Trados Studio 2019. I was reviewing a project, so I received both a project package from the PM and a return package from the translator. Everything seemed normal until I began the QA phase. When I hit Ctrl + Enter to confirm an alphanumeric segment, a pop-up appeared with a progress bar, indicating autopropagation across numerous segments. I confirmed two before realizing what was happening. After that, I stopped confirming segments to avoid exacerbating the issue and just proceeded with QA.

    I've attached some screenshots of the project settings below in case they help clarify the problem.

    Thanks again for your help,

    Warning dialog box stating 'The translation provider AnyTM: TM_Brose_GerSpa.sdltm could not be opened and has been disabled' with an OK button.

    Project settings window showing a list of translation memories, their names, enabled status, languages, and other options.

    Project settings window displaying translation memory search options, including minimum match value, maximum number of hits, and fragment matching options.

    Project settings window showing auto-substitution options for dates, numbers, times, variables, and alphanumeric strings.

    Options window for auto-propagation settings, including minimum match value, prompt user conditions, and translation quality assessment settings.

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    [edited by: RWS Community AI at 11:38 PM (GMT 1) on 9 May 2025]
  • Hi Citlalli Mejía,

    I once had a similar issue with autopropagation and the cause turned out to be erroneous entries in the TM I used. The faulty entry was either in one of the project TM or one of the master TM, I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, I had to go through all my project and master TM, searching for partial matches of the autopropagated translation and deleting the erroneous segments. In my case, this solved the issue.

    You may have already checked this, in which case, please disregard my reply. Sweat smile

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  • I can confirm I encountered the same issue, which was caused by an incorrect entry in the translation memory. I believe RWS should implement a fix to prevent the potentially serious consequences of such errors.

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  •   and others in this thread

    Well, would you sue the vendor of a digicam in the same way, if your photos would bad due to wrong setting of the shutter or sharpness or diaphragm? Certainly not, as these settings must be properly used. In that respect Studio is exactly the same as a very professional digital camera. A good artist can create perfect pictures with it, while an amateur will achieve only average results.

    The autopropagation in this very case was triggered by the recognition of alphanumeric strings. Such strings consists only of so called "word characters", which are letters, numbers and underliners in this case. Something like Ab_2 is an alphanumeric string. Another setting with similar effect are acronyms, as when activated BMW or AUDI will be treated the same way as DANGER or CAUTION.

    Please do not get me wrong, but this is OUR responsibility to use the tool delivered by RWS in proper way. The settings responsible for this "error" may be very useful in certain scenarios, while in other scenarios they are problematic. But these are only settings, which can be changed. This is not in any way an error in the software and does not need to be fixed at all.

    _________________________________________________________

    When asking for help here, please be as accurate as possible. Please always remember to give the exact version of product used and all possible error messages received. The better you describe your problem, the better help you will get.

    Want to learn more about Trados Studio? Visit the Community Hub. Have a good idea to make Trados Studio better? Publish it here.

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Reply
  •   and others in this thread

    Well, would you sue the vendor of a digicam in the same way, if your photos would bad due to wrong setting of the shutter or sharpness or diaphragm? Certainly not, as these settings must be properly used. In that respect Studio is exactly the same as a very professional digital camera. A good artist can create perfect pictures with it, while an amateur will achieve only average results.

    The autopropagation in this very case was triggered by the recognition of alphanumeric strings. Such strings consists only of so called "word characters", which are letters, numbers and underliners in this case. Something like Ab_2 is an alphanumeric string. Another setting with similar effect are acronyms, as when activated BMW or AUDI will be treated the same way as DANGER or CAUTION.

    Please do not get me wrong, but this is OUR responsibility to use the tool delivered by RWS in proper way. The settings responsible for this "error" may be very useful in certain scenarios, while in other scenarios they are problematic. But these are only settings, which can be changed. This is not in any way an error in the software and does not need to be fixed at all.

    _________________________________________________________

    When asking for help here, please be as accurate as possible. Please always remember to give the exact version of product used and all possible error messages received. The better you describe your problem, the better help you will get.

    Want to learn more about Trados Studio? Visit the Community Hub. Have a good idea to make Trados Studio better? Publish it here.

    emoji
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