Strange tag error in SDL Studio 2011 when trying to create target version of file
Max Hessler Germany Local time: 04:00 Member (2005) English to German
Jan 18
Hi friends,
I justed completed a 30000 word translation if a Framemaker 10 file (*MIF) in SDL Trados Studio 2011. When I tried to create the file in the target language I receive the following error:
"The 'para' start tag on line 1 does not match the end tag of 'cf'. Line 1, position 407199."
This obviously relates to the special tag at the top (as well at the end) of the file, containing the file name of the *.mif file. One doesn't even have access to this kind of tag, so I don't see what I could do wron here.
Today I entered a support ticked at SDL, but they simply replied they can't help because I don't have a software maintenance agreement with them (for at least 200€!!).
I found in this forum that someone else on proz.com had exactly the same problem, but there is no solution in her forum entry. Anyone out there who knows how to deal with this error?
Thanks!
Max
Subject:
Comment:
The contents of this post will automatically be included in the ticket generated. Please add any additional comments or explanation (optional)
Jerzy Czopik Germany Local time: 04:00 Member (2003) Polish to German + ...
Does the error occur just in one single file?
Jan 18
Or are more files engaged?
Please try to open the untranslated mif file, which creates problems and translate just one or two sentences in the middle of the file. Try to produce target. If this works, try to start translating and save target every 10-20 segments. This way you could be able to separate the segment which causes problems, if any.
If however the whole file creates problems, maybe you try to save it in a different MIF version. For example you could also run the process via S-Tagger for Framemaker, if the file is MIF 8. As the filter there works completely different from the filter in Studio, this might help.
Another question: do you translate any special elements in FM or do you use just th default filter settings?
And as for the PSMA: I do have it and I would never want to resign. This 200 EUR per year are very good invested money. You not only get help, and this very fast, but als are entitled to all upgrades for free within the PSMA period.
Subject:
Comment:
The contents of this post will automatically be included in the ticket generated. Please add any additional comments or explanation (optional)
Max Hessler Germany Local time: 04:00 Member (2005) English to German
TOPIC STARTER
Yes just a single file
Jan 19
Dear Jerzy,
thanks for your help.
Well, in my opinion the single file is simply too big (30K words) to try your suggested method, might be useful for smaller files (probably the size of the file is the problem). I decided to save it as a MIF v7 and do the whole thing in Trados 2007 which worked quite good (after exporting the Studio 2011 entries). Still I find it annoying they are not prepared to help like they did in the past. It's their software, not mine and they sell it for quite a good price.
Honestly, for me it's not worth having a >200 € SW maintenance agreement. I need their support maybe only every 4 years or so, but of course your situation maybe completely different. Also, they should know about such SW issues to improve their application.
I'm glad I still have SDL Trados 2007 installed -- still have to switch to it from time to time, because SDL Studio doesn't work as expected (although I prefer the Studio version over the Workbench/TagEditor combination). By the way, I'm not a Trados hater, I've been working with it for years and appreciate it. Actually the best and most stable translation environment tool I know was developed by a local translation agency, but unfortunately they don't sell it as stand-alone tool for freelancers....
Thanks anyway & Cheers,
Max
(not sure what you meant by "special elements" in FM, probably elements specific to certain FM versions?)
Subject:
Comment:
The contents of this post will automatically be included in the ticket generated. Please add any additional comments or explanation (optional)
Jerzy Czopik Germany Local time: 04:00 Member (2003) Polish to German + ...
The file was MIF8?
Jan 19
What I would have done is processing the file in S-Tagger, then taking the TTX into Studio, translating there (if you have the Pro version, you could have used PerfectMatch) and then processing the resulting ttx in S-Tagger again.
It would be interesting to know, if the unprocessed MIF does save back as such from Studio, when just opened there, then having few sentences translated, and attempted to produce target.
Again, do you translate any special items or have kept just the default settings in the filter for FrameMaker?
Subject:
Comment:
The contents of this post will automatically be included in the ticket generated. Please add any additional comments or explanation (optional)
Stanislav Pokorny Czech Republic Local time: 04:00 Member (2009) English to Czech + ...
MIF problems
Jan 19
Hello Max and Jerzy,
I can confirm recent problems with MIF files in Studio 2011 SP1. I have a new client who sends between 4 and 10 large MIFs every month. The problems begin right in the project preparation which stops at the "Word Count" batch task and throws an error. Strangely enough, all files open over "Open Document", but then either cannot be saved, or saved as targets. I receive all kinds of error messages: tag errors (while there are of course none), system out of memory etc.
I tried the S-Tagger roundtrip already a month ago and this is working, except that:
1. S-Tagger has traditionally problems with Czech diacritics (yes, all language settings are correct) and cannot deal with characters such as "ě, š, č, ř, ž, ť, and ď);
2. The S-Tagger roundtrip only works for MIF v.7 and earlier files, so I have to convert v.9 to v.7, potentially losing some document properties that are not backwards compatible;
3. The entire process with S-Tagger could be fine if I had one such file in three months, but is not acceptable with ten files a month.
Paul Filkin confirmed that he had the same problem with my MIFs, but he could get the target out. Also, and this is most important, he confirmed that the current development build can handle those MIFs without any problems.
So I hope that the new build will be released ASAP; I certainly wouldn't like to lose that client (an excellent one, BTW).
Subject:
Comment:
The contents of this post will automatically be included in the ticket generated. Please add any additional comments or explanation (optional)
Max Hessler Germany Local time: 04:00 Member (2005) English to German
TOPIC STARTER
issues resolved (almost)
Jan 22
Hi friends,
finally the Trimble support person hast returned my files (original .mif file and bilingual SDLXLIFF file). He found two segments that caused the problem, but couldn't say why they caused it. The returned file SDLXLIFF file now worked fine, I could create the target *mif file without problems. He suggested that probably some hidden character had been indroduced while translating.
Also he recommended to return the state of the target segment to the source and translate around the tags in my SDLXLIFF file (not the one I had sent in). When I did this, strangely I received a warning that the order of the tags was changed (although it was not the case!). So I still couldn't create the target .mif file. That was 2 days ago. Today when I tried this again it worked fine. Hm, so I'm a little puzzled. What is strange that the tag verification tool didn't find the error in the first place and I'm still waiting for a reply from the support person how they managed to find the segments at fault. Hope they'll give a hint.
No Jerzy, the file was MIF 10, and yes, saving the untranslated file worked ok (also with only a few segments translated). When I used S-Tagger I had to save it as Mif 7, because in Framemaker you can't save as v8. Yes, I used standard settings and I still don't know what you mean by special elements?
Stanislav, exactly the fact that some features may get lost when saving a FM 10 file as v7 was the reason why I was a little reluctant to translate the whole thing in SDL Trados 2007 in the first place. So if that happened the client will have to bother with it now. So like you I'm hoping that these kinds of bugs will be resolved with future releases.
Cheers,
Max
Subject:
Comment:
The contents of this post will automatically be included in the ticket generated. Please add any additional comments or explanation (optional)
gfichter United States Local time: 19:00 Member (2006) English + ...
another approach
Jan 22
I am glad that the problem is solved, but I'd like to make a suggestion anyway.
If we start with the assumption that you didn't do anything wrong, and that the problem could be a bug in Trados, it could be quite easy to solve it outside of Trados. This is what I did with an unrelated tag problem in a Polish project, and there were no side effects.
From the error message and your first post, it seems that the problem is the "para" tag, and the fact that it is not matched by a "/para" tag. You state that this is a top-level tag, so the missing tag would be at or near the end of the file. So here's what you can do:
Open the file in a text editor. You may need to use Wordpad if the file shows up as one long string, because the file is in Unix format (no carriage returns). The error message reflects this as the entire file seems to be on line 1 ("Line 1, position 407199.") I use UltraEdit, but there are lots of other good text editors.
Find the para tag.
Go to the end of the file where you would expect to see the /para tag, and enter it as LESS-THAN-SIGN/paraGREATER-THAN-SIGN. The be safer, you could look at a good file (one that doesn't cause the problem) and see how that /para tag is entered. There is a chance that it is simply LESS-THAN-SIGN/GREATER-THAN-SIGN in the right place.
Test the file. If this doesn't work, try adding the closing /para tag right after the para tag, and see if that causes errors. For example, LESS-THAN-SIGNparaGREATER-THAN-SIGNsomethingLESS-THAN-SIGN/paraGREATER-THAN-SIGN.
This is pretty quick-and-dirty, but considering the time you put into this it might be worth a shot next time something similar occurs. In my case, one of the tags starting with LESS-THAN-SIGNx- was garbled, and I just changed it to look like its neighbors. Problem solved.[Edited at 2012-01-22 18:51 GMT] - sorry, I'm having problems representing the html tags in this post.[Edited at 2012-01-22 18:55 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-01-22 18:59 GMT]
Subject:
Comment:
The contents of this post will automatically be included in the ticket generated. Please add any additional comments or explanation (optional)
I've been having the same problem with a MIF file (FM version 10) that does not want to convert. I have purchased the PSMA and the SDL Trados Technical Support has not been able to come up with a solution yet (3 weeks and counting).
I've also tried the suggestions here, opening the file in and editor application to find the paragraphs looking for the problem and have not had any luck.
Has anyone found a solution to this error yet?
Subject:
Comment:
The contents of this post will automatically be included in the ticket generated. Please add any additional comments or explanation (optional)
To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator:
DVX2 Professional is the most popular version of Déjà Vu X2 and with good reason. Fast and flexible, Déjà Vu X2 Professional combines Atril’s Intelligent Quality technology with an array of powerful, customisable productivity and quality assurance
Exclusive discount for ProZ.com users!
Save over 13% when purchasing Wordfast Pro 3.0 through ProZ.com. Wordfast is the world's #1 provider of platform-independent Translation Memory software. Consistently ranked the most user-friendly and highest value
The translation workplace 
Translation news related to SDL Trados