Drupal 7 Classic Connector FAQ

• To Test Network: Go to the modules main setting page and press “Test connection” button. You should get a list of green locales and the top of the page. If you don’t get it - either locales are not configured properly or there is a network issue. Right now we do not support proxies or any other workarounds for firewall issues. So the network should work straightforward for the connector to function well. We use CURL as a low-level library and support for https should be enabled for it.
  
  
• Queues: Because of some limitations of PHP we run queues by cron. And by default 95% of the processing happens during cron run. As a result if cron is triggered rarely, it might take a while for the content to arrive to Smartling or be downloaded back.
  
  The easiest way to check if we are facing some issue with queues is to disable them on Advanced settings of Smartling module. In order to do that, please, uncheck “Asynchronous mode” checkbox on that page. After this you should be able to trigger upload/download operation immediately from any UI option you prefer.
  
  For test purpose I usually enable “Pseudo” translation mode on the settings tab. Then upload a new piece of content and download back right after that. After that you need to check if translation was applied. If it was, then it is worthwhile to look deeper into the queues and if it didn’t then there might be an issue with some other subsystem.
  
  
• Module Settings: On the Drupal status page there should be a green background for the line about Smartling filesystem. It means that module is allowed to write files with source/translations on disk.
  
  Languages need to be set correctly according to the Smartling dashboard.
  
  Check if there is no message at the bottom of Smartling config page stating that “The following field(s) should be disabled for translation: ...”. If there is one, it means that one of the fields is translated both “by nodes” and “by fields” which is prohibited.
  
  When translating field_collections, make sure that the node containing it is translated with “by nodes” method and that fields inside field collection are checked for translation on the Entities tab.
  
  
• Subsystem that extracts source content and applies translations back: Everything is pretty complicated here. So if you didn’t find any issues in the subsystems above - the issue should be passed to a developer.
  
  
• Logs: It is always a good thing to take a look at logs and see if you see anything strange there. Usually it is a good practice to filter messages by “Smartling” and “PHP” type. In many cases these messages will contain a tip for an answer.
  
  And we (developers) highly appreciate when the customers issue that is passed to us contains text from logs that might be related to the issue (with “Smartling” or “PHP” type). Our recommendation for the info needed to understand what’s going on on the site:
  • Logs
  • Screenshot of site config
  • Steps to reproduce the issue (if available)
  • Result of checks of the subsystems mentioned above

After these steps, you will see a generated context. If not, and if it's just a blank page or page with “Unauthorized” text, it may be due to a Basic auth set up on your web server. Set up basic auth credentials on the Smartling settings page.