Offline translation files not recognized

Question

When I try to use Google Translate offline, I get an error:

Translation failed. Offline translation file not available. Please check SD card is inserted.

In Settings-> Storage I could see that the Translate app was stored in the phone's internal memory. I tried moving it to the SD card, and even after restarting the device, the same error was still there.

Using a file browser, I am able to look at the SD card and see that /storage/extSdCard/Android/data/com.google.android.apps.translate/files/olpv3/v5/25/r11 contains folders like dict.en_pt_25, lang.en_pt, and lang.pt_en where "pt" is also replaced by some other two-letter language codes. .../r12 contains the files for French.

How do I get Translate to work?

Answer 1

In the file browser, at e.g. .../r11, Select All and choose Move, and move them to the similar path on internal memory (which works out to be /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.google.android.apps.translate/files/olpv3/v5/25/r11) and also move the other revisions (e.g. .../r12 on the SD card to .../r12 on internal memory). The app itself can still be running on the SD card, but for some reason it can't find the offline translation files there.

Answer 2

Try to de-install the app and then re-install it, incl. the offline language packs that you need. Make sure that all the time, the SD card is in the phone and mounted, otherwise it doesn't work. In my case, after re-installation, Android had created folders for the app in the phone's internal storage as well as on the external SD card. But all the offline language packs were placed automatically on the SD card only. Now offline translation works fine and the error message that you mention in your post doesn't show up any more.