Troubleshooting Failed Translations

Why Translations Fail

Translation jobs can fail for several reasons. Most are related to the source image quality or file specifications. Here are the most common causes and how to resolve them.

File Too Large

Symptom: Error message about file size exceeding the limit.

Fix:

Check your plan’s file size limit (Free: 10 MB, Starter: 15 MB, Standard: 20 MB, Pro: 25 MB)
Save the image as JPG at 85-90% quality to reduce size
Convert to WebP format for smaller files without visible quality loss
Reduce the image dimensions if they far exceed your chosen output resolution

Corrupted or Unreadable Image

Symptom: Error indicating the image cannot be processed or read.

Fix:

Re-export the image from your source application (PDF reader, scanner software)
Open the image in an editor, make no changes, and re-save — this often fixes metadata corruption
Try a different format (e.g., save PNG as JPG or vice versa)
Verify the file opens correctly on your computer before uploading

No Text Detected

Symptom: The AI returns the page unchanged or reports no translatable text.

Fix:

Ensure the page actually contains text (purely decorative or illustration-only pages may not process)
Check that text is legible — very small fonts (under 8pt), extreme stylization, or heavy overlapping artwork can prevent detection
Try uploading at a higher source resolution
For handwritten content, ensure the writing is reasonably clear

Timeout Errors

Symptom: Job stalls or returns a timeout error after extended processing.

Fix:

Pages with extremely dense content or very high resolution may take longer than expected
Retry the job — timeouts are sometimes caused by temporary server load
If the page is unusually complex, try splitting it or reducing resolution
Switch from Advanced to Standard mode, which processes faster

Unsupported Language Pair

Symptom: Poor output quality or garbled text for a specific language combination.

Fix:

Verify both source and target languages are correctly selected
Try using Auto-detect for the source language
Some rare or low-resource language pairs may produce lower quality — this is an AI model limitation
For best results, use major world languages as the target (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.)

Partial Failures in Batch Jobs

Symptom: Some pages in a batch translate successfully, others fail.

Fix:

Check the failed pages individually — they likely have one of the issues above
Re-upload only the failed pages after fixing the issue
Failed pages in a batch do not consume credits (credits are refunded for server-side failures)

How to Retry

Go to /dashboard/translate
Find the failed job in your history
Click Retry to resubmit with the same settings, or re-upload with adjusted settings

Retrying a failed job deducts credits normally. If the failure was a server-side error, your original credits will have been refunded first.

When to Contact Support

Reach out to hello@translayer.app if:

The same page fails repeatedly after trying the fixes above
You see an error message you don’t recognize
Credits were deducted for a failed job and not automatically refunded
You believe there’s a bug in the translation output

Include your job ID (visible in the dashboard) and a description of the issue for fastest resolution.