# AI translation backfill not working after all settings configured
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** ai, content-localization
**Created:** [July 17, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669 "2025-07-17T17:09:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@joo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/joo)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/1 "2025-07-17T17:09:59Z")
I’m trying to enable automatic content localization (AI translation backfill) on my self-hosted Discourse instance and I’ve followed all the available guidelines, but I’m not seeing any translations appear.
Here’s what I’ve done so far:
- Enabled `content localization enabled`
- Selected at least one language in `content localization supported locales`
- Enabled `ai translation enabled`
- Chosen a working `ai translation model` (test is successful)
- Set `ai_translation_backfill_hourly_rate` to a number greater than 0 (using the environment variable method in `app.yml`)
- Set `ai translation max age days` to a large value
After saving and rebuilding, I posted topics in a different language than my user language preference, but nothing gets translated. I don’t see any evidence of translation jobs running (tried checking Sidekiq scheduled/queues), and the user-facing content remains untranslated.
Is there anything else I should check, or any way to better diagnose why the translation backfill is not triggering?
---
### Author:  [@nat](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nat)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 2:51am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/3 "2025-07-18T02:51:32Z")
What is your `ai_translation_backfill_hourly_rate` – can you try 20 to begin with? It would help if you could share all the values.
Are all your posts public and not in restricted categories? If `ai_translation_backfill_limit_to_public_content` is disabled, you won’t have any posts translated.
`SiteSetting.ai_translation_verbose_logs=true` will show some details when it’s successful.
Alternatively if you have [data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true), you can try the following to see
- if there are any LLM calls to translate
- or if post locales are getting detected but the posts are not translated
```plaintext
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM ai_api_audit_logs
WHERE feature_name = 'translation'
```
```plaintext
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM posts
WHERE (locale IS NOT NULL AND locale <> '')
```
---
### Author:  [@joo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/joo)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 6:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/4 "2025-07-18T06:45:49Z")
Thank you for your reply!
- My DISCOURSE\_AI\_TRANSLATION\_BACKFILL\_HOURLY\_RATE is set to 30.
- ai\_translation\_backfill\_limit\_to\_public\_content is enabled.
- All of my posts are public and not in any restricted categories.
---
### Author:  [@nat](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nat)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 7:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/5 "2025-07-18T07:27:56Z")
> [@joo](#):
>
> I don’t see any evidence of translation jobs running (tried checking Sidekiq scheduled/queues)
Were these the jobs you were looking for?
* * *
Please also do check the queries mentioned above.
---
### Author:  [@joo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/joo)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 11:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/6 "2025-07-18T11:25:16Z")
> [@nat](#):
>
> 
Thank you for your suggestion!
Yes, I can see these jobs in Sidekiq under `/sidekiq/scheduler`:
- `Jobs::PostLocalizationBackfill`
- `Jobs::TopicLocalizationBackfill`
- `Jobs::TopicsLocaleDetectionBackfill`
They all appear with status “OK” and have recently run.
I also noticed that the topic titles are being translated correctly, but the post content itself is not translated yet.
Should I simply wait longer for the content to be processed, or is there another setting that I need to check for post content translation?
---
### Author:  [@tyronejv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tyronejv)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2025, 9:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/7 "2025-09-10T21:13:16Z")
I have the a similar problem after making all the same changes in my hosted instance. In this case I’m using openai 4o. It seems to translate only the past 3 or 4 posts and nothing further. I still have plenty of credit available on my api key.
---
### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2025, 9:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/8 "2025-09-10T21:45:13Z")
What is your `ai translation max age days` at ?
After adjusting that, it can take a while to take effect.
---
### Author:  [@tyronejv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tyronejv)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2025, 4:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/9 "2025-09-11T16:11:13Z")
> [@RGJ](#):
>
> ai translation max age days
1. Its been around 24h
---
### Author:  [@GrahamM](https://meta.discourse.org/u/GrahamM)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2025, 4:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/10 "2025-09-11T16:19:47Z")
Hello,
I think I’m running into the same issue. I’ve followed all the steps in the guide ([https://meta.discourse.org/t/content-localization-manual-and-automatic-with-discourse-ai/370969](https://meta.discourse.org/t/content-localization-manual-and-automatic-with-discourse-ai/370969)), including setting `AI_translation_backfill_hourly_rate = 50`.
I’ve tested with all available OpenAI models (tests were successful), and I also ran a rebake.
Unfortunately, the AI plugin still refuses to perform automatic translations.
Has anyone an idea what could be wrong?
I’d be very grateful for any help, as I’m really looking forward to this feature.
Version: 3.6.0.beta1-dev
Regards
Graham
---
### Author:  [@tyronejv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tyronejv)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2025, 5:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/11 "2025-09-11T17:31:55Z")
> [@GrahamM](#):
>
> AI\_translation\_backfill\_hourly\_rate
Where I’m at currently. I ran the test with the API key it’s fine. Like I said, translated like 3-4 pots then no others, also new posts are being added and no translations on those.
---
### Author:  [@GrahamM](https://meta.discourse.org/u/GrahamM)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2025, 5:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/12 "2025-09-11T17:52:11Z")
@joo : me and @tyronejv are using OpenAI. Is that also the case for you?
Maybe the issue is related to their API connection.
@tyronejv I’m using very similar settings like you. The API key test works fine, but translations still don’t run.
---
### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/13 "2025-09-11T19:08:39Z")
- anything in `/logs` ?
- try to go to `/sidekiq/scheduler` and manually trigger all jobs that contain “LocalizationBackfill” and “LocaleDetectionBackfill”
---
### Author:  [@GrahamM](https://meta.discourse.org/u/GrahamM)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2025, 9:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/14 "2025-09-11T21:31:54Z")
Solved!
1. Do not use GPT-5 unless you have not verified your organisation in OpenAi-Organization settings
2. insert your organisation Id ([https://platform.openai.com/settings/organization/general](https://platform.openai.com/settings/organization/general)) in discourse ai settings
3. disable temperature settings in discourse ai llm settings
---
### Author:  [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2025, 6:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/15 "2025-09-12T06:22:48Z")
At the moment GPT-5 is so slow that its use shound be targeted to different type things. But sure, that is matter of taste and it depends.
But I’m using Chat GPT/GPT-5 in Finnish every now and then. Earlier 4x-series where actually quite good with a small and hard language such Finnish. Now… I would never use it for translations. Perhaps GPT-5 and next generations evolve and do better job in the future and perhaps it is already spotless between major languages.
But sure, that was totally off topic, but perhaps it can be allowed this one time. You did find needed solution after all. But my vague point is this topic should never born, because , at the moment and by my experiences, no one should never use GPT-5 for translations in the first place.
---
### Author:  [@nat](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nat)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2025, 12:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/16 "2025-09-15T12:21:51Z")
Thanks for the screenshots.
As mentioned by @GrahamM `ai_translation_backfill_hourly_rate` needs to be set by your site admin as it is a hidden setting.
* * *
Other than what’s mentioned in the [FAQ](https://meta.discourse.org/t/content-localization-manual-and-automatic-with-discourse-ai/370969#p-1797766-faq-12), could you folks check -
- Check the graph at `https://your-site.com/admin/plugins/discourse-ai/ai-translations`. How many eligible posts are there? If it doesn’t show up, you’ll need to update
- e.g.
- Run this query in discourse-[data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) if you have it:
```sql
SELECT
a.id,
a.created_at,
a.raw_request_payload,
a.raw_response_payload,
a.post_id
FROM ai_api_audit_logs a
WHERE a.created_at > '2025-09-01'
AND a.feature_name = 'translation'
ORDER BY a.created_at DESC
LIMIT 100
```
- open a post is a backfill candidate, is the locale detected?
- undetected
- detected
---
### Author:  [@RBoy](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RBoy)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2025, 2:09am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/17 "2025-11-05T02:09:21Z")
> [@nat](#):
>
> Were these the jobs you were looking for?
>
> 
I’ve made sure that AI translation is enabled, backfills days (10 per hour) and limits (10000 days) are all set. I’ve added Spanish translations but it still says that backfill is disabled and I don’t see any jobs in sidekiq. Do I need to rebuild? I didn’t a rebuild 3 days ago. Most posts are public to read.
What am I missing?
---
### Author:  [@nat](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nat)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2025, 2:42am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/18 "2025-11-05T02:42:36Z")
> [@nat](#):
>
> As mentioned by @GrahamM `ai_translation_backfill_hourly_rate` needs to be set by your site admin as it is a hidden setting.
We’ve most recently unhidden the setting `ai_translation_backfill_hourly_rate` in this [PR](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/35769).
That setting defaults to 0, and was originally hidden so that only hosters (who know what they’re doing) can set that value. You’ll need to update that to a value like 100.
---
### Author:  [@RBoy](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RBoy)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2025, 11:38am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/19 "2025-11-05T11:38:21Z")
Yes I saw that and changed it from 0 to 10 (see the screenshots above) and it’s still saying that backfill is disabled with no scheduled jobs. Is there some way to kick start it or is something else required?
I’ve tried a 100 also but still no joy.
---
### Author:  [@nat](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nat)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2025, 3:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/20 "2025-11-06T15:20:29Z")
What posts are you trying to translate? Bot posts (users with ids \<= 0) are not sent for translations.
Are your posts in private categories?
---
### Author:  [@RBoy](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RBoy)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2025, 6:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669/21 "2025-11-06T18:35:34Z")
The whole site in general, want to use users options to see posts in different languages. Not bot or private, 1000’s of public posts.
Now this is very weird, when I see the dashboard now (19 hours later), I see this. It’s saying backfill is disabled but seems to have started doing some posts but it’s saying only 11 posts; is that how many are done or is that the total number it’s targeting or are those new posts?
One again, I don’t see any backfill jobs in scheduled jobs
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ai-translation-backfill-not-working-after-all-settings-configured/374669.md?page=2)