TM+ at your own risk!

The new default as of version 10.5 causes repeated trouble

I didn’t make it to memoQ Fest 2023 last year, but I wasn’t surprised to hear that at least one of the company’s [highly placed executives who must not be indicated even by hints] had publicly warned “recommended caution” to attendees regarding the “improved” translation memory technology, TM+, because of all the problems experienced by users. Now, more than a year later, the official line is quiet regarding the troubles, even questionably optimistic based on nothing I see related to normal user requirements (TM+, the Most Reliable Translation Memory Engine), and the company even made this the default when creating a new translation memory in memoQ version 10.5 or later. But problems, serious problems of many kinds, persist. I discover incompatibilities often when tests I do involve memoQ features integrated with its translation memory features. There is a lot of technical debt still to pay in that regard.

Here’s a excerpt from a private message exchange just this week with another user who uses memoQ in a virtual machine running on an iMac:

@Kevin: I wrote memoQ support on account of an issue I was having with v10. Actually there's nothing new, I'm thinking back to when v10 deleted a TM in an uncontrolled manner when it first came out.

Today I was trying to delete some throwaway TMs and create a new one for analysis purposes. And couldn't get this to work, memoQ kept throwing an error. (The files were created on the iMac but weren't listed in memoQ. Deleting them caused them to disappear in memoQ but they remained on the iMac.) Fortunately I could do this in v9, which is still installed, thank God. For some weird reason I am able to create new projects in v10, create and delete LiveDocs, but not TMs.

The Support tech wrote:

I suggest to change your storage folders to within the Parallels VM/Windows and re-register your projects and resources, so it's entirely within the Windows environment.

Also, if this is a shared folder, then it would also explain the issue, as memoQ doesn't support cloud storage/shared folder solutions either to store projects and resources, because the Translator Editor keeps these files open during use, and the automatic synchronization processes would potentially corrupt these opened files.

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This doesn't make sense to me since creating/deleting projects and LiveDocs works OK in v10. Only TMs seem to be affected.

Besides which, what he is suggesting is quite impossible. That would basically mean switching to Windows. Storing everything (resources and other assets) in the VM would make it bloat in the extreme and become unmanageable. It would make data backup a nightmare.

Before I respond to memoQ support, I wanted to know if there is another solution, say another memoQ version, especially since I had no issues in this regard until version 10.

I rarely create or delete TMs, so resorting to v9 is not an issue right now. But it isn't a solution in the long run.

I replied:

I think you may have accidentally fallen into the TM+ by default trap

I think it was 10.5 or so when all new TMs were made as TM+ unless you manually change that while creating them. There are still TONS OF BUGS with TM+

Later, after trying my suggestion to manually select the “classic TM” format, she replied:

Damn, Kevin, I could kiss you! By deselecting TM+ I was able to create a new TM in version 10. Should I rub this in the tech's face for providing the usual canned response? Or should I assume he was acting in good faith?

Well, of course the suggestion from Support was made in good faith. In 15 years of dealing with memoQ Support, I’ve seen them make errors as anyone can, but never have I seen any evidence of the kind of bad faith that is part of the daily routine at Portuguese telecom companies like NOS or MEO. Not even incompetence, really. Most people don’t realize just how much time it takes even for some genius kid fresh out of university working the Level 1 support desk to master every subtlety of every possible thing that can go awry dealing with full-featured software in myriad complex workflows. Even the best oldtimers can get things wrong, and probably do frequently, at least in the first attempt at a response. I mess up all the time. So let’s try to be a little more patient with one another. (I need to engrave that bit of advice on the inside surface of my glasses!)

That said, avoid TM+ for serious work for now. The software provider is inappropriately pushing it harder than the underdeveloped and often incompatible state of the technology justifies. Here’s how to avoid TM troubles:

The dialog for creating a new translation memory in memoQ version 11, with defaults

The red arrow in the screenshot above shows the current default setting to create a new translation memory in the TM+ format. Deselect that checkbox!!! Unfortunately, you’ll have to do that every time you make a new translation memory unless memoQ changes their policy.

What’s ahead? The current memoQ online Help tells us the following:

TM+ will gradually take over the place of the classic TM engine. To provide enough flexibility to our customers, the schedule spans several years:

2023 Q2 - Classic TM is default, TM+ is available

2024 Q1 - Classic TM is available (as deprecated), TM+ is default

2025 - Classic TM no longer available, TM+ only

I frankly doubt that all the bugs will be out by 2025, but we’ll see. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.