Theme translations not working after "Internationalization improvements in 6.7"

[tigriweb]

Description

Hi,

After the i18n improvements in WordPress 6.7, standard theme i18n strings are not working.

I’ve tested this on FSE patterns (404 page, footer) and in functions.php.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Create an FSE pattern for the 404 page with the i18n string: <?php echo esc_attr_x( 'Page not found', '404 error page', 'your-theme-name' ); ?>
2. Create a /languages/pl_PL.mo file containing the translated data.
3. Load the theme text domain:

add_action( 'after_setup_theme', function() {
	load_theme_textdomain( 'your-theme-name', get_template_directory() . '/languages' );
} );

3. Set the pl_PL language in wp-admin.
4. Go to the 404 page. The string does not display the translation.
5. You can also test the following code in functions.php:

echo esc_attr_x( 'Page not found', '404 error page', 'your-theme-name' );

add_action( 'init', function() {
	echo esc_attr_x( 'Page not found', '404 error page', 'your-theme-name' );
} );

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

No response

Environment info

WordPress 6.7-RC1, 6.8.

Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.

• Yes

Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except Gutenberg.

• Yes

Please confirm which theme type you used for testing.

• Block
• Classic
• Hybrid (e.g. classic with theme.json)
• Not sure

[t-hamano]

Thanks for the report. I was able to reproduce this issue too.

To test this issue, I created a repository: https://.com/t-hamano/translate-test

The load_theme_textdomain() function seems to return true, but the text is not translated at all.

WordPress 6.6.2	WordPRess 6.7 RC2

[swissspidy]

This is better reported over at https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ as it doesn't seem to be an editor issue.

[t-hamano]

Core ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/62337

[swissspidy]

Thanks, closing in favor of https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/62337 then

[swissspidy]

This is a consequence of https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/59157. If calling load_*_textdomain() after WordPress has already attempted just-in-time loading, nothing happens. For themes, just-in-time loading is triggered by _register_theme_block_patterns (which is hooked to init at prio 10).

So the code snippet above with after_setup_theme should actually work 🤔

Anyhow, please follow https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/62337 for updates.