WorldServer - Error 'Placeholder not found' when importing a XLIFF file

When importing the XLIFF file back to WorldServer, the translator gets an error message like:

Placeholder not found. TM: *translated content {1}..."

For instance

Placeholder not found. TM: Painduvad B{9}23P{10}-tüüpi ühendused - heitgaasitorud (põlemisõhk võetakse boileriruumist).

This means that the translated segment is not properly recognized by WorldServer because of the XLIFF file format. The content is still imported and will cause the error to appear during Save in Browser Workbench.

To avoid encountering this issue, the WSXZ Studio package file format should be used to work in Trados Studio.

The XLIFF format not only is not supported on a live TM WorldServer system: this format does not include any Translation memory coming from WorldServer. No target file in the original file format can be created from Studio to verify that there are no errors. Also: no multiple TM export and penalties can be applied using XLIFF format. These and many more features related to the advanced integration between WorldServer and SDL Trados Studio are not applied - which can affect the quality of the translated content.

To fix the placeholder error:

• Open the affected Task in Browser Workbench
• Do a Save and you will get an Internal Error page.
• On that page, click on Error Details
• You will now see the stack trace of the error. In the first line, you will find this error:

Placeholder not found. TM: *translated content {1}..." for instance

Placeholder not found. TM: Painduvad B{9}23P{10}-tüüpi ühendused - heitgaasitorud (põlemisõhk võetakse boileriruumist).

Note: the Text and the placeholder numbers after "TM:" will vary

• Copy the text (Ctrl+C) after "TM:" for instance "Painduvad B{9}23P{10}-tüüpi ühendused". This points to the translation causing the issue
• Close the Error window
• Reopen the file/task in Browser Workbench and click on Ctrl+F and paste the text you previously copied
• The search should point you to the segment causing the problem. Make a note of the segment number and copy the target translation to a Text file, for instance in Notepad.
• Select the affected segment and click on the button Tools/Paste from Source. The source segment text will be copied to the target segment field.
• Do another Save and confirm that there is no more error
• Copy the translation from your Text file back to the target segment which is now in the source language
• Do another Save and confirm the error is gone and the translation is in the target segment.

Note: If the Task is in Autoerror at the Save step, complete the Autoerror. If not, no more steps are needed.

Important: do not re-import the XLIFF file or the issue will happen again and you will need to repeat the workaround.

 

The XLIFF export/import file format is not fully supported file format in WorldServer, especially in Live TM WorldServer environments.
Issues like Placeholder not found errors might appear although there are no visible placeholder/tags issues in the imported translation.