Meta has categories translated to Chinese when locale is English when not logged in

[fuzzyk (Daniel)]

I am browsing from Germany, with a German IP address. Yet, Meta contents (not UI!) are partly translated to Chinese for me? The language picker (upper right) does nothing.

After logging in, it’s correct now, but the logged-out view remains translated.

The documentation category (green) reads:

文档

Its description:

关于如何使用Discourse、安装和配置站点、开发插件和主题以及排查常见问题的官方文档。包括教程、使用指南、常规参考和故障排除等主题。

Non-content elements (like headers on the list of topics) are not affected.

The issue appears in all browser on all devices, irrespective of what language browsers are set to request.

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

It is likely a bug related to our current work in progress here:

@mcwumbly

A new multilingual experience

We are working on new translation features that will enable an entirely new experience for multilingual communities. We are working towards an initial version that is ready for wider feedback, but there’s a lot to figure out while we’re exploring what’s possible now with LLMs, what belongs in the Discourse Translator plugin, and what belongs in core. Stay tuned!

If you come across specific pages that show this issue for you, can you share both a link to the page and a screenshot of what you see?

[fuzzyk (Daniel)]

Fun fact: my own post now appears entirely translated to Chinese for me…

[Moin]

I only took one screenshot 2025-04-27T11:45:00Z

After I logged in, the category names were in English. Then I changed the language in my preferences to German, and the category names are “German” (AI made up new words. “Gastgehalten” isn’t a word I came across, and at least 2 of the 3 Google results are spelling mistakes).

[JammyDodger]

@mcwumbly

If you come across specific pages that show this issue for you, can you share both a link to the page and a screenshot of what you see?

Here’s a few:

Links: /latest, Documentation, Bug, sidebar

This was when I was casually browsing as anon (iPhone/Safari. English UK as phone/browser locale)

[nat (Natalie T)]

Thanks for the screenshot, these are helpful.

What is probably happening is the anonymous cache for categories is not localized properly and we have some cache poisoning when the cache is invalidated and the next user comes along with Chinese set in their browser or on meta.

It is a bit peculiar because we knew about the bug and it had already been reverted, and it should not be on meta. Will investigate further.

[nat (Natalie T)]

This should be fixed. I’ll leave this open for the week in case anyone else is facing the same issue.