The Google Translate recursion bug
Recently I found a bug in Google Translate. It’s not damaging, but it is interesting.
What I have discovered is that when you use a certain string, the Google Translate frame inserts itself into the main frame, causing it to load again within that frame, in turn this causes it to reload within that frame and this continues until your browser decides it’s had enough and stops (or in the case of Internet Explorer, until it locks up). This kind of self-looping is often referred to as recursion.
First off, I want to say point out that I did try and ask various people how to contact Google to report this bug, but nobody got back to me.
It seems nobody wants to take responsibility for the Google Translate project and I was all up for reporting it as I heard other people have received T-Shirts for doing so. But, no T-shirt for me, so I guess I’ll just publish on my site instead and see if they fix it.
Also last time I provided feedback to Google, they created a solution, but never emailed me back to thank me or anything. (The “Go to Google.com” that appears on the Google regional search (eg: Google UK) is a direct result of my feedback, it did not exist until about a month after I submitted my feedback).
Don’t get me wrong, I like Google, but it’s not nice to be ignored.
Okay, so onto the actual bug…
Google Translate Recursion
I discovered this after trying to translate a URL from a Wikipedia.
I narrowed this down to the apostrophe (‘) in the URL…
I realised it would work on any domain…
However, it did not, or does no longer work with just an apostrophe…
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=%27
Bad Request
Your client has issued a malformed or illegal request.http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://%27
Redirects to home page.
Interestingly enough though, it does work when translating Google’s very own search:
A pretty poor show by Google if you ask me.
I do wonder though, who will get there first? Will Google fix it or will someone exploit it?
There’s only one way to find out… Post!
Enjoy.
Update 04-Sept-2009: It seems to me that this bug has been fixed. I await my Google T-shirt…
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Yes, same thing happened to me when I tried it. There’s been somewhat of another bug on Gmail too. When loading Gmail on a 0 or 1 bar connection level, it just refreshes automatically. I’m not sure if my connection is the problem, or it could just be another one of Google’s bugs.
its happening to me how do I fix it?
I have been using Google Translator (Japanese to English) for many years in order to shop and bid on Yahoo Japan Auctions for Japanese Baseball Cards. I use to be able to do searches (just like using eBay), have the web page translated, and click on an item to have it’s page/URL open in a new tab or on the same page in translated English. But for awhile now–month(s)–when I go to open a new link, a new auction, the Google Translator either doesn’t translate it into English, or, more often it will go back to the main Yahoo Japan Auction home page in the original Japanese. This happens on all Yahoo Japan Auction pages as follows:
Go to the Google Translator page: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
Enter this or any Yahoo Japan Japanese Baseball card auction’s URL into the Translate Web Page section (chose to translate from Japanese to English), such as this auction that ends in about 5 days: http://page18.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w65963357
And instead of translating the page it will either go to a Yahoo Japan Auction error page or more likely it will go back to the main/home page for Yahoo Japan Auctions. The Google Translator doesn’t work, it no longer translates Yahoo Japan Auction item’s web pages from Japanese into English.
I have the links to searches I do every night on Yahoo Japan Auctions using the Goggle Language translator, and these main search links will come in properly translated from Japanese into English, such as this one on one of the main searches I do for Japanese baseball card auctions:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcategory.auctions.yahoo.co.jp%2Flist%2F???????-??-????-??????????-??????-??????%2F21014%2F%3Fn%3D100%26p%3D???%26tab_ex%3Dcommerce%26auccat%3D21014%26slider%3D0&sl=ja&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
But once the translated search page comes in and you click on any of the auctions, they open but they are no longer translated into English. They use to automatically open translated into English. I also use to be able to click on any of the auctions to have them open in a new tab (Safari Browser) and they would be translated into English. But that no longer happens. The Google translator no longer works automatically for links, when I go to the item’s auction page.
And if you copy the un-translated URL for the auction, then go back to the translated search page, and paste the URL into the Google Translate section at the top of the page, click translate, it doesn’t work, it doesn’t translate the page. Instead, it either takes me to a Yahoo Japan Auction error page, or it takes me back to the Yahoo Japan Auction main home page.
Long story short, Google’s language translator for Japanese to English no longer works on Yahoo Japan Auctions, no longer works on the auction item’s page using the translate the URL section of their translator.
I try by adding Apostrophe, and it works. Thank you so much.