Bug 510941 - Localization seems broken in digiKam-8.8.0-Qt5-MacOS-x86_64.pkg
Summary: Localization seems broken in digiKam-8.8.0-Qt5-MacOS-x86_64.pkg
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: digikam
Classification: Applications
Component: Bundle-MacOS (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 8.8.0
Platform: macOS (DMG) macOS
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Digikam Developers
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-10-23 07:08 UTC by Hackintosh HD
Modified: 2026-01-04 11:52 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed/Implemented In: 9.0.0
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
Screenshot with a missing localization on macOS Sequoia 15.7.1, German system locale (165.91 KB, image/png)
2025-10-23 07:08 UTC, Hackintosh HD
Details
digiKam 8.9.0 include DE translations as expected (2.14 MB, image/png)
2025-12-21 07:22 UTC, caulier.gilles
Details
Settings dialog after clicking on the Defaults button (60.86 KB, image/png)
2026-01-02 13:19 UTC, Hackintosh HD
Details

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Description Hackintosh HD 2025-10-23 07:08:24 UTC
Created attachment 186030 [details]
Screenshot with a missing localization on macOS Sequoia 15.7.1, German system locale

SUMMARY


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Install digiKam-8.8.0-Qt5-MacOS-x86_64.pkg on macOS Sequoia 15.7.1 w/ a German system locale.
2. Launch digiKam.
3. There is no step 3.

OBSERVED RESULT
All digiKam menus remain in English EXCEPT for the QT digiKam menu.

EXPECTED RESULT
All digiKam menus appear in their German localization as in earlier digiKam versions.


SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
macOS: 15.7.1 (24G231) Intel
Qt Version: 5 (according to the package name).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Please see the screenshot below (folder structure anonymized by a black retangle). The digiKam dialogues visible are digikam → About... and Settings → Configure Language.... Clicking on 'Defaults' and relaunching the application does not change anything.
Comment 1 caulier.gilles 2025-10-23 07:32:21 UTC
Hi,

The problem is mostly reproducible with the Silicon version, where DE language do not exists in the langues dropdown menu. I don't know why yet...

Gilles Caulier
Comment 2 caulier.gilles 2025-10-23 07:33:51 UTC
The DE translation of digiKam exists well in the git repository with the source code. So there is no reason to seen DE dropped from the list.

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/tree/master/po/de?ref_type=heads

Giles Caulier
Comment 3 caulier.gilles 2025-10-23 07:42:16 UTC
Look at /Applications/digiKam.org/digikam.app/Contents/Resources/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES to see if digikam.mo compiled translations file exists. For mine :

# ls -al
total 1696
drwxr-xr-x  12 root  wheel      384 Oct 17 10:26 .
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel       96 Oct 17 10:25 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel     4883 Oct 17 10:26 breeze_kwin_deco.mo
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel     2597 Oct 17 10:26 breeze_style_config.mo
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel  1110079 Oct 17 10:26 digikam.mo                         <======= !!!
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel   756472 Oct 17 10:26 exiv2.mo
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel   143601 Oct 17 10:25 kio6.mo
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel     3889 Oct 17 10:25 kjobwidgets6_qt.qm
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel       30 Oct 17 10:25 knotifications6_qt.qm
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel      903 Oct 17 10:25 knotifyconfig6.mo
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel    11262 Oct 17 10:25 ktextwidgets6.mo
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel    17269 Oct 17 10:25 sonnet6_qt.qm

Gilles Caulier
Comment 4 caulier.gilles 2025-10-23 07:52:11 UTC
My mistake from the comment #1 : DE is Deutch languagen not German in the list. 

https://imgur.com/0mQE4HI

If i select DE on the list and i restart the application, German translations is well here :

https://imgur.com/Jz6veE3

Giles Caulier
Comment 5 Maik Qualmann 2025-10-23 08:45:07 UTC
Check the "~/Library/Preferences/" directory for the file "klanguageoverridesrc" and delete it if it exists. It may have incorrect permissions and cannot be modified.

Maik
Comment 6 caulier.gilles 2025-10-23 09:30:07 UTC
On my macbookpro M1 :

# pwd
/Users/gilles/Library/Preferences
# ls -al k*
-rw-------  1 gilles  staff    48 Aug 20  2024 kdeglobals
-rw-r--r--  1 gilles  staff    34 Oct 23 09:46 klanguageoverridesrc
-rw-------  1 gilles  staff  1587 Jan  4  2024 knowledge-agent.plist

Gilles Caulier
Comment 7 Hackintosh HD 2025-10-24 20:53:18 UTC
Thank you both, Gilles and Maik, for checking my report. Unfortunately, the problem is not resolved on my Intel MacBook Pro.

I've done the checks suggested above - the digiKam resources for 'de' do exist ...

-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  1110079 17 Okt 10:43 /Applications/digiKam.org/digikam.app/Contents/Resources/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/digikam.mo

... and also the klanguageoverridesrc preference file exists ...

-rw-r--r--  1 MyUserName  staff  34 24 Okt 22:34 klanguageoverridesrc

Deleting it and relaunching digiKam afterwards leads to the recreation of the file as expected.

The interesting thing is that a change of language followed by a digiKam relaunch only changes the language of and below the digiKam menu item. All other menu items and their submenus remain in English as you can see in my initial screenshot. It does not seem to depend on the language I choose, either: I've tried the same with français (fr) and português (pt) which then show the same behaviour of only changing the items below the digiKam menu item, but not the following items Album, Browse, Item, Tag ... and so on.
Comment 8 caulier.gilles 2025-11-06 06:32:59 UTC
The KDE core team has discovered an error in a maintenance script about the digiKam translations which break the forward of i18n files in the project... since more than one year. As all is automatized in background, we do not double check the i18n workflow at release time.

This morning, I clean all build caches on the VM in charge of packaging, including the macOS PKG. The daily build will fix this problem. Look at end of this day at the current 8.9.0 pre-release PKG available here :

Silicon: https://files.kde.org/digikam/
Intel: https://files.kde.org/digikam/legacy/

Best regards

Gilles Caulier
Comment 9 caulier.gilles 2025-11-06 06:43:13 UTC
To be more precise, the i18n workflow is this one :

1/ Source code EN from Git repository
2/ Extraction as PO files
3/ Translators works
4/ Forward translated PO files in source repository
5/ Compilation of translated PO as MO files
6/ Packaging with translated MO files. 

The broken point is 2/. The packaged MO files was older one as transators do not seen the new/changed strings in source code which give a mess in the Application.

PO : Program object (text based translations)
MO: Machine Object (binary compiled of text translated files)

So, we need to lest few days to the translators to update the translation of the PO files as plenty of new strings will be declared in the text files. Translation can take few weeks to be completed, depending of the people availability.

My best

Gilles Caulier
Comment 10 caulier.gilles 2025-11-07 03:01:22 UTC
Relevant KDE system admin MR about to fix i18n issue:

https://invent.kde.org/sysadmin/repo-metadata/-/merge_requests/639.
Comment 11 Maik Qualmann 2025-12-12 07:17:38 UTC
*** Bug 513232 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 12 caulier.gilles 2025-12-21 07:22:55 UTC
Created attachment 187833 [details]
digiKam 8.9.0 include DE translations as expected
Comment 13 Hackintosh HD 2026-01-02 13:19:59 UTC
Created attachment 188151 [details]
Settings dialog after clicking on the Defaults button
Comment 14 Hackintosh HD 2026-01-02 13:20:30 UTC
I've checked today's digiKam-9.0.0-20260101T200252-Qt5-MacOS-x86_64.pkg for the problem and in my tests, it only seems partly solved:

If I run digiKam with its default language settings (Settings → Configure Language → Defaults + OK + digiKam relaunch), digiKam's GUI will still be displayed in English after a relaunch of the application, although the click on the Defaults-button has correctly set

a) my system locale as 'Primary language',
b) my system locale as a first 'Fallback language',
c) my system locale as a second 'Fallback language'.

I attach a screenshot of the relevant digiKam settings dialog after the application's relaunch.

To solve the problem, I have to delete at least the second 'Fallback language' digiKam's Default button has set and have to relaunch the application. After that, digiKam's GUI will be in the language set as 'Primary language' - but only then.
Comment 15 Hackintosh HD 2026-01-02 13:25:36 UTC
... so to cut a long story short, from my user perspective the creation of _two_ fallback language entries by the Defaults button seems to trigger a problem with the same result - a GUI in English no matter what has been set.
Comment 16 caulier.gilles 2026-01-02 22:57:37 UTC
Right.

The possible is certainly due to missing translations files about KDE framework. I think not all necessary files are not included yet in the bundle. Typically, at run time digiKam try to load these files :

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/blob/master/core/app/utils/digikam_globals_bundles.cpp?ref_type=heads#L326

Note the difference between the Qt5 and Qt6 catalogs loaded in memory. Qt6 version has less translations files.

Gilles
Comment 17 caulier.gilles 2026-01-03 09:40:19 UTC
Git commit c238f970726db2c0f963600bd81e4be268d47af9 by Gilles Caulier.
Committed on 03/01/2026 at 09:36.
Pushed by cgilles into branch 'master'.

Fix missing .qm local packages to load in the bundles.

M  +7    -1    core/app/utils/digikam_globals_bundles.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/commit/c238f970726db2c0f963600bd81e4be268d47af9
Comment 18 caulier.gilles 2026-01-03 09:55:43 UTC
Git commit 31ba0338f414e725d0df396b149d3ddfb8168f06 by Gilles Caulier.
Committed on 03/01/2026 at 09:54.
Pushed by cgilles into branch 'master'.

more missing .qm local files with Qt5 version

M  +3    -1    core/app/utils/digikam_globals_bundles.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/commit/31ba0338f414e725d0df396b149d3ddfb8168f06
Comment 19 caulier.gilles 2026-01-03 10:08:29 UTC
Git commit 86814d0ad82159453c0338f33f0e48112e65dc09 by Gilles Caulier.
Committed on 03/01/2026 at 10:07.
Pushed by cgilles into branch 'master'.

fix locale matrix

M  +40   -33   core/app/utils/digikam_globals_bundles.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/commit/86814d0ad82159453c0338f33f0e48112e65dc09
Comment 20 caulier.gilles 2026-01-03 10:39:57 UTC
Git commit a1297be080e5e67f3d65778d63dafdb7769077d2 by Gilles Caulier.
Committed on 03/01/2026 at 10:39.
Pushed by cgilles into branch 'master'.

fix matrix

M  +49   -38   core/app/utils/digikam_globals_bundles.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/commit/a1297be080e5e67f3d65778d63dafdb7769077d2
Comment 21 Hackintosh HD 2026-01-03 22:38:24 UTC
Thank you very much, Gilles, for your efforts to fix the bug.

I've now tested digiKam-9.0.0-20260103T200252-Qt5-MacOS-x86_64.pkg, but the problem is still there (I would also test a Qt6 package for macOS x64 (Intel), of course, but it is apparently no longer built?).

What still surprises me is that removing the _second_ fallback language only already solves the problem. Is it really intended that digiKam's button for restoring the default language settings creates _two_ fallback language entries?
Comment 22 caulier.gilles 2026-01-04 04:51:33 UTC
Hi,

The Intel (Qt5) PKG is always here : 

https://files.kde.org/digikam/legacy/

I need to rebuild the Silicon Qt6 PKG to take changes. It's not yet done (the Qt5 must be fixed).

About the Languages selection dialog, i must admit that i don't know how it's work. It come from KDE framework. There is no digiKam code here. We package it when the right set of translations files and the configuration is done by this dialog at run time. The corresponding code is here :

https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/kxmlgui/-/blob/master/src/kswitchlanguagedialog_p.cpp?ref_type=heads#L133

Gilles Caulier
Comment 23 caulier.gilles 2026-01-04 05:58:07 UTC
Git commit d43b7c6d75344c02125e0ce9a4ed78b300059a85 by Gilles Caulier.
Committed on 04/01/2026 at 05:52.
Pushed by cgilles into branch 'master'.

Fix the breeze icons compilartion with Qt6/KF6.
24px icons generation with the Python3-lxml based script is broken under macOS with Macports.
Currently we drop 24px icons sets for the moment.
Note: until KDE frameworks 6.8, a C++ compiled binary file was used instead a python3 script.
This one works as expected everywhere. Now all is broken expected under Linux. Why to increase complexity in time!

M  +18   -2    project/bundles/3rdparty/ext_kf6/CMakeLists.txt
M  +5    -1    project/bundles/macports/02-build-extralibs.sh

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/commit/d43b7c6d75344c02125e0ce9a4ed78b300059a85
Comment 24 caulier.gilles 2026-01-04 06:22:24 UTC
Git commit 569c3ac0c1cce7b1204df7dd353baff049f0cc1d by Gilles Caulier.
Committed on 04/01/2026 at 06:21.
Pushed by cgilles into branch 'master'.

update matrix

M  +4    -4    core/app/utils/digikam_globals_bundles.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/commit/569c3ac0c1cce7b1204df7dd353baff049f0cc1d
Comment 25 caulier.gilles 2026-01-04 07:20:27 UTC
Git commit 6cc8629076494a4c3250cbf7cbfe6c6ac68ab7c7 by Gilles Caulier.
Committed on 04/01/2026 at 07:19.
Pushed by cgilles into branch 'master'.

fix Matrix.
Now macOS Silicon Qt6 has all the translations files included.

M  +14   -14   core/app/utils/digikam_globals_bundles.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/commit/6cc8629076494a4c3250cbf7cbfe6c6ac68ab7c7
Comment 26 caulier.gilles 2026-01-04 10:29:37 UTC
Git commit 3d1448b7b0649da1e24d3df6a853c75d286da6f0 by Gilles Caulier.
Committed on 04/01/2026 at 10:24.
Pushed by cgilles into branch 'master'.

update matrix.
All is fine excpeted the Qt6 AppImage whic do not includes translations from KDE frameworks.
We need to fix it.

M  +48   -34   core/app/utils/digikam_globals_bundles.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/commit/3d1448b7b0649da1e24d3df6a853c75d286da6f0
Comment 27 caulier.gilles 2026-01-04 11:52:42 UTC
Git commit b4616bec399de335504beea158e15e2442fc87fd by Gilles Caulier.
Committed on 04/01/2026 at 11:51.
Pushed by cgilles into branch 'master'.

Fix matrix. Now all i18n are fine everywhere.

M  +17   -19   core/app/utils/digikam_globals_bundles.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/commit/b4616bec399de335504beea158e15e2442fc87fd