How to update text without affecting all localisations?

krishcrush · February 12, 2021, 3:29pm

Hello,

I have a game with completed localisations but I need to make some minor changes to the main language without affecting other languages.

Is there a way for me to change text in the main language without affecting any of the localised languages?

Currently, if I make any chances to the text in English, it flushes out all localisations for that string.

Thank you,

Jamie_Dale · February 15, 2021, 8:34pm

If you enable the “Skip Source Check” option under the “Compile Text” section for your localization target, then that will skip the validation check when building the LocRes files and allow “stale” text to be used at runtime.

PO files will still export with an empty translation though, and the translation dashboard would show the entry as untranslated (with a stale translation).

krishcrush · February 18, 2021, 1:36pm

Thanks Jamie.
Sadly, I’ve not been able to get this to work.

I’ve checked the “Skip Source Check” option under the “Compile Text” section, however when I change any text, it removed the localised text as well. I have tested this in a packaged game.

To confirm, I didn’t gather or compile the localisation. I simply changed a bit of text for a widget that was already localised. Once I loaded the packaged game, that text reverted to English and was missing the ‘stale’ localisation.

Is there anything else I need to do for this to work correctly?

Jamie_Dale · February 18, 2021, 3:18pm

You’d need to gather and compile after making the source changes in order to update the source hash in the LocRes files.

krishcrush · February 19, 2021, 11:23am

Once I gather+compiled it worked for text in widgets. Thanks Jamie!

However, text in a dialogue plugin I’m using (FText variable inside a Data Asset) doesn’t work. Any changes I make to the dialogue text removes the native translations. Any idea why this is not working?

Jamie_Dale · February 19, 2021, 8:58pm

Is the plugin somehow changing the key for every edit?

krishcrush · February 23, 2021, 3:28pm

Thats exact what it was. The key was being changed. Thank you Jamie! Really appreciate the support.

Daerst · February 1, 2026, 11:14pm

@Jamie_Dale I did have some trouble with the Skip Source Text flag, which wouldn’t work properly in my builds (translated text with changed source string was still missing, even if I ticked Skip Source Text, regathered, recompiled, cooked and built). I investigated the issue and found that the flag correctly includes or omits stale text when building the LocRes file, but there’s another culprit at work:

When chunking the LocRes, FLocalizationChunkDataGenerator::GenerateChunkDataFiles calls FTextLocalizationResourceGenerator::GenerateLocRes with hardcoded EGenerateLocResFlags::None. I think this step works with the data from the previously compiled LocRes (which already includes or doesn’t include stale strings, as desired by the user), so if I’m correct, the simple change to hardcoded EGenerateLocResFlags::AllowStaleTranslations would be all it takes to repair this.

– David

Jamie_Dale · February 10, 2026, 3:46pm

It’s actually using the manifest data rather than the LocRes data (as the LocRes doesn’t have the source location), but you’re right that it should respect that flag (as set in the config). I’ll make a note to see what can be done there.

Daerst · February 12, 2026, 9:25am

Ah, the manifest, right. Thank you Jamie, appreciate it.