Infinite Redirection on Multilingual Site

[icouto]

I have just setup a web site which uses 2 languages: English, and Brazilian Portuguese. I downloaded the Brazilian Portuguese translation for the admin, and installed it without any problems.

The site will have 2 sections: an English section, and a Portuguese section. So, I started adding some pages to the English section, and used those to format the template I'm using. No problems.

Then, I added a page at root level, which will be the entry point to the Portuguese side of the site. I named this page "Português" - that is 'Portuguese' in Portuguese. No problem. The page appears in the admin, in the menus, etc, without any hassle (and including the accent), as I've applied the changes described here: http://forum.websitebaker.org/index.php/topic,5374.0.html.

Now, unfortunately, some of the items in that page - namely, the 'search' field, and the 'login/logout' form - are appearing in English. So, I thought that I would just need to go to Admin->Pages and go into the settings for that page, and set the 'Language' to "Portuguese (Brazil)".

I do that, and save my new settings. All seems fine, except that when I try to access that page, either with Safari or FireFox, I get an 'infinite redirection error'! This is what Safari says:

Safari can’t open the page.
Too many redirects occurred trying to open “http://www.superstudent.com.au/pages/portugues.php?lang=PT_br”. This might occur if you open a page that is redirected to open another page which then is redirected to open the original page.

And this is what FireFox has to say:

The page isn't redirecting properly

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

    *   This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept
          cookies.

I *can* access the page, if I change the default language of the entire site to Portuguese, or
if I change the language of the page back to English.

Am I doing something wrong? Can anyone shed any light? - any and all help is enormously appreciated.

[ruebenwurzel]

Hello,

known issue. Has to do with session cookies and languages wich causes that changing languages in WB admin get not stored correct in the database when storing.

Possible workaround:
go with phpmyadmin in the database and change there the language settings of the pages.

some of the items in that page - namely, the 'search' field, and the 'login/logout' form - are appearing in English

Look at the projects page. There are tickets about this and also (for the search) the solution.

Matthias

[icouto]

Dear Matthias,

Thank you, once again, for you quick feedback!

I look forward to a new version of websitebaker, with the solution!

Keep up the good work!

[icouto]

Matthias, I had a look at the 2.7 project page, and browsed through all the tickets, but I could not find a ticket about this 'infinite redirection' (or 'database caching') problem. Is this something that has already been addressed by the developers? - or should a new ticket be added?

[ruebenwurzel]

Hello,

but I could not find a ticket about this 'infinite redirection' (or 'database caching') problem. Is this something that has already been addressed by the developers?

You are right, for this we have no ticket, as we don't know exactly where the problem is. It only occurs on special lokal enviroments and we cannot reproduce it. We can only give hints what possibly could cause this. The most are lokal browsercache related, so this is very difficult for us to solve this in WB 

Matthias

[icouto]

Dear Matthias,

Hmmm, that's terrible! What a horrible problem! Surely, there must be something we can do together to troubleshoot it, and pinpoint the cause.

Can you suggest anything? Can I provide you with any information about my setup that may be helpful? Is there anything you'd like me try?

I know that multi-language support is important to WB - and also to me - and I really would like to help you guys work out this particular bug, if at all possible.

Kind Regards,

Igor

[ruebenwurzel]

Hello,

What i talking no about is only a summary from some threads here, and I'm not shure if this points the problem. Also have not the ability to check and test this all.

WB works with session cookies. In some cases the language is stored as part of this session cookie and in some cases not, also this language part seems in some cases to be needed and in some it would be better not to be there. So your problem from the first post i think was, that your actually session cookie has a language info in it and you tried to store a page with a different language. This seems to brake the storing of the correct language infos in the database.

Again, this is only theoretical and i never could reproduce this. But to look for a solution the whole session handling of WB has to be improved.

Matthias

[icouto]

Dear Matthias,

Of course, it is important for you to be able to reproduce the problem - otherwise, how can you troubleshoot it? Unfortunately for me, the bug is *certainly* reproducible, in all my browsers (Safari, FireFox, Opera), and also in my other computers.

I am quite happy, if you message me privately, to send you the login details for one of my sites, so that you can try out the problem by yourself, and therefore, be in a better position to FILE A BUG REPORT about this!

I really would like to helpo to see this sorted out, as the multi-lingual functionality is very, very important to me.

Once again, many thanks for all your great work!

[icouto]

Any takers? 

[kweitzel]

You are aware, that some people here do take money for that kind of service, since it is their living?

cheers

Klaus

[icouto]

kweitzel, if what I wanted was to *customise* WebsiteBaker in some way, sure, I think it would be only fair to expect someone to pay for services. But since this is a *reproducible bug* in the software, I would have expected - this being open source - that the developers would be interested in troubleshooting it. I would have expected more than average interest, since this is a package which is developed in a non-English speaking country, and therefore believed that *halting bugs* to do with language and multi-lingual websites would be high on the agenda. Considering further, that this bug has not even been added to the tracker, I again, would have expected some interest.

Although I unfortunately cannot afford to pay money for the fixing of this *bug*, I again offer to donate my time and effort, just like any other developer in the open source community would be expected to. I hope this will be enough to prompt someone more knowledgeable than me in WB to tacke this issue! 

[kweitzel]

If you use the tutorial provides by Ryan for creating the multilingual sites, you will not have the issue.

cheers

Klaus

[icouto]

Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the tutorial is for a site that *automatically* defaults to a certain language, based on the default language of the user's browser. It also seems that the site automatically *hides* the languages that are not the user's default. Finally, in order to get that functionality, the user MUST order their site according to certain pre-defined hierarchy. That is not the functionality I'm after. I need sites where all languages are displayed in the menu to the user, and the user gets to pick which one they would like to use.

Lastly, it seems that I *should* be able to do what I am trying to do - it seems that WebsiteBaker WAS designed to do this. It seems that THIS IS AN ACKNOWLEDGED BUG, and that, for some strange reason, people are refusing to officially add it to the tracker, so that it can be troubleshooted. Giving people patch-up solutions is not the answer. Tackling the bug is - specially when people are offering their time and effort to help you do so.

I hope someone DOES take this up in the future. It would help make WebsiteBaker become TRULY multi-lingual, and become an ever better software than what it already is.

[spida]

I hope someone DOES take this up in the future. It would help make WebsiteBaker become TRULY multi-lingual, and become an ever better software than what it already is.

I agree with icouto. Has anything been done meanwhile about this specific bug? I am too about to set up a multilingual website in the manner icouto uses to do, and in such cases the manual does not cover the method completely.