crowdin string export failed: placeholder mismatch

crowdin string export failed: placeholder mismatch

TL;DR

Fixes the Crowdin export failure when a translation's placeholders do not match the source. Correct the translator's placeholders to mirror the source. Use when export names a placeholder mismatch. Not for untranslated strings.

The error

Error: placeholder mismatch in string cart.items: expected {count}, found {nombre}.

Fix it

Step 1: Open the failing string

node -e "console.log('find cart.items in the Crowdin editor and compare source and translation placeholders')"

Expected: You see the source uses {count} and the translation uses {nombre}.

Step 2: Fix the translation placeholders

node -e "console.log('edit the translation to use {count}, keeping the translated words')"

Expected: Placeholders now match the source exactly.

Step 3: Re-run the export

node -e "console.log('export the build and confirm it succeeds')"

Expected: The export completes.

When to use this

• Crowdin export fails on a placeholder mismatch
• A translation renamed a placeholder

When NOT to use this

• Strings are untranslated, that is a completion problem
• The export fails on file format, check the exporter config

Tool and version compatibility

• Crowdin
• ICU and printf placeholder validation on export

Variant phrasings

mismatch in many strings at once

A machine translation pass renamed placeholders globally. Fix with a QA check, not by hand.

placeholder order differs

Order can differ; only the names must match. Reorder freely.

Why it happens

Placeholders are the contract between code and translation. If the translation renames {count}, the runtime interpolation finds nothing to substitute, so Crowdin blocks the export rather than shipping strings that would render raw placeholders.

Edge cases

• Some languages need the placeholder twice; duplicates are fine if names match
• Escaped braces look like placeholders to naive checks
• QA checks can auto-fix common renames before export

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_Wbxd4bY5USTrLVnZdG2wQA

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_Wbxd4bY5USTrLVnZdG2wQA

Thread query: crowdin string export failed: placeholder mismatch

TL;DR: Fixes the Crowdin export failure when a translation's placeholders do not match the source. Correct the translator's placeholders to mirror the source. Use when export names a placeholder mismatch. Not for untranslated strings.