Speedy Translate troubleshooting

The problems people meet most, and what to check. The dashboard's Status card is the first place to look: it checks the system plugin, the Language Filter and Speedy Translate's folders, and shows whether inline translation is on.

The edit form has no language tabs

• The item's Language is not All. Language tabs are for items set to All languages: an item set to one language shows in that language only.
• Only one content language is published. The tabs list the other published content languages; with only one, there is nothing to translate into. See the dashboard's setup.
• Inline translation is off, or the component is in Exclude components, in Options → General.
• Your access level. If Access level is set in the options, only users with that level see the tabs.
• The system plugin is disabled. In System → Plugins, enable System - Speedy Translate.
• The extension has no adapter. See what you can translate.

Translations are saved but the site shows the original

• The Language Filter is off. Joomla's System - Language Filter plugin must be enabled for the site to have languages at all.
• You are looking at the default language. Switch to the other language with the switcher, or open its URL (/fr/…).
• The multilingual mode changed. Translations saved in one mode are not read in another. Check Multilingual mode in the options.
• A page cache. Clear Joomla's cache, and any cache of your host or CDN.
• Falang answered the page. If Falang was installed or updated after Speedy Translate, Joomla can load Falang's plugins first. Speedy Translate then leaves that one page to Falang and moves its own plugin ahead of Falang's, so the next pages are its own: reload the page. See Moving from Falang.

Machine translation says “No translation came back”

Open administrator/logs/com_speedytranslate.errors.php: the provider's own message is there, with the key masked. Usual causes:

• A wrong, expired or restricted key, or the provider's API not enabled in its console (Google's Cloud Translation API, for example).
• A Yandex key of the retired Yandex Translate API: create a Yandex Cloud API key with the ai.translate.user role.
• An exhausted quota or unpaid account.
• A model name the account cannot use, for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
• A language the provider does not translate into.

A bulk translation job does not move PRO

• The job is paused. A provider error pauses it; the Bulk translation page says why. Fix it and press Resume.
• The plugin Task - Speedy Translate is disabled, or the scheduled task Speedy Translate - Bulk translation is.
• Nothing starts Joomla's scheduler. Turn on the lazy scheduler or web cron in System → Scheduled Tasks → Options, or better, run php cli/joomla.php scheduler:run from the server's cron every minute. See How jobs run.
• Press Run now on the job to work on it at once.

The switcher shows the wrong page, or no flags

• A language whose item has no translated alias uses the original alias in its URL; the page still shows in that language. Translate the aliases to get translated URLs.
• After upgrading from version 2, a template override of the switcher made for version 2 can break it. Rename the override to test with the module's own layout.
• The switcher lists published content languages only. Check System → Content Languages.

An update fails, or Joomla says the Download Key is missing PRO

solidres.com hands over Pro's updates only with your download ID, and answers a request without a valid one with a 403 error.

• Copy your download ID from My subscriptions on solidres.com into Options → General → Download ID and save. Joomla then shows it as the Download Key of Speedy Translate Update Server in System → Update Sites, where you can also enter it.
• On a site still on version 2, the updater cannot fetch 3.0: version 2 never passed the download ID to Joomla. Download Pro from My subscriptions and install it over 2.x in System → Install → Extensions.
• A valid ID still gets a 403 when the subscription has ended: renew it, or install Speedy Translate Lite over Pro, which keeps your translations.

Database driver

Speedy Translate works with both of Joomla's MySQL drivers, MySQLi and MySQL (PDO), chosen in System → Global Configuration → Server. PostgreSQL is not supported.

Still stuck?

Pro subscribers can open a ticket from Support → Tickets on solidres.com. Say which Joomla, PHP and Speedy Translate versions you run, and attach the lines of administrator/logs/com_speedytranslate.errors.php if the problem involves machine translation.