An AEM translation job can look active after a bad ZIP import

A localization practitioner reported that importing a ZIP with the wrong contents moved an AEM translation job to Translation in progress without explaining why the import had stopped. The status gives the operator an apparent success signal while no translated content arrives. Adobe's translation-project documentation describes manual export/import and the meaning of job and item states; the reported mismatch is a community observation, not a documented universal behavior.

Confirm the archive belongs to the job

Before import, compare the archive name, language, job ID, file list, and source export date with the handoff record. Keep the original exported ZIP and the vendor-returned ZIP together. If a provider changed directory structure or filenames, isolate that difference on a copy. Adobe describes selecting the file through the translation job's Import action, but the article does not assume that a changed job status means every file was accepted.

Verify at the item and page level

After import, inspect each job item and the corresponding language copy. Record counts in Ready for Review, Error Update, or other states, and check a small set of representative pages for translated text. A job-level progress label is too coarse to prove an import worked. If no items changed, preserve screenshots, job details, archive manifests, and logs before retrying. Do not repeatedly import different archives into a production job without a reproducible diagnosis.

Build a handoff gate

Give translators a manifest with expected paths and language codes; require the returned archive to match it before anyone clicks Import. Include a post-import reconciliation step in the localization runbook. Where the UI offers no rejection reason, raise the captured case with Adobe Support and request explicit validation feedback.

Adovo’s view

A status is a claim about work completed. When the claim cannot be reconciled to files and pages, the workflow is still unverified. Translation operations need evidence at the item level, especially before a multilingual launch.