Rise Translation Import Stuck in Processing

Here are some ideas that may help you get through this issue. If you followed the correct export and import procedure, then the issue may be caused by some tags in the XLF file that was exported from Rise or Storyline. 

Thousands of tags are generated by Storyline, and Articulate doesn't always tell us where or what tags are causing the issue during import. If we knew which lines in the translated XLF file had errors, it'd be easy to fix, instead of trying to find a needle in a haystack. 

Articulate does sometimes provide an error message when importing a translated XLF file, telling us which tag is causing the problem. eg. "A SpanningCodeStart with id span_3 was not found." (See screen shot.) This is helpful, but still requires a tedious process to locate the error. And there may be more errors! 

Sometimes the file just crashes or hangs during import, without any error message. However, you may notice that PART of the foreign language has imported. If this is the case, identify the slide in the training where it stopped importing the translation. Then I start by opening the translated DOCX file that we received from our vendor. Locate the corresponding place in the translated DOCX and XLF where a tag problem exists.  Remove extra tags that are out of sequence, or in middle of a sentence. You may see a word outside of the tags (between tags 4 and 5) or spacing is different (before rather than after the tag). Try to import again after saving XLF file. 

Another solution that may enable a successful import: Text that is copy-pasted from MS Word adds a lot of formatting tags that aren't necessary. So if you normally copy text into Articulate from a Word doc, consider copying into Notepad or similar first. I have not tried this as it will remove ALL formatting. 

FYI, I asked Articulate in a previous trouble ticket if they can update their software to always deliver an error message that includes the specific tag that is preventing the successful import, instead of just crashing or hanging. 

ARTICULATE, would a formal Feature Request lead to that outcome? 

I did receive this tip from Articulate:

There's no feature in Storyline that analyzes translation files, so I've used a third-party tool, WinMerge, to compare the affected translation file and the original text from the course. It looks like there are additional tags in your translation file. It can help identify tags present in your translation file that were not exported in the original text.

This is a long-winded explanation that (hopefully) lead to successful imports. Thanks. -Jill