NoaLingua Documentation
Symptom, cause, fix
If something stopped working, refresh the page first. When the extension updates, the script in every already-open tab is orphaned: the box still looks alive but every action fails. That single cause explains most reports, and NoaLingua detects it and offers a reload button.
First rule: reload the page after an update
When the extension is installed, updated or reloaded, the content script in every tab that was already open is orphaned. The subtitle box still looks alive, but every message it sends to the extension fails from that moment.
The symptoms arrive as a set: saving fails, the examples tab is empty, and the popup says it cannot reach the tab — while chrome://extensions cheerfully shows a new version.
NoaLingua recognises this itself and shows a strip reading “NoaLingua was updated — reload this page to restore saving, grammar and examples,” with a Reload page button. Always refresh before concluding something is broken.
The subtitle box
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| No box at all | The site’s captions are off, or the video has none. Turn on CC. Check NoaLingua is not disabled for that site in the extension popup. |
| “Captions are on, but none are reaching NoaLingua…” | Most often another subtitle extension hiding or replacing them. Turn it off, then refresh. |
| “YouTube’s own auto-translate is selected…” | YouTube is translating instead of you, and its request was refused. Reloading does not help — YouTube remembers the choice for about 30 days. Open the player’s subtitle menu and pick a plain language. |
| The subtitle is in the wrong language | Same cause, same fix. Language detection stays deliberately silent here, because a translation says nothing about the original. |
| Nothing on Netflix after 12 seconds | NoaLingua puts up its own message: subtitles are not switched on in Netflix’s Audio & Subtitles menu. |
Translation
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| “This language needs a one-time download…” | Press Download now. Progress appears in the same line. |
| “Cloud translation isn’t available right now…” | The cloud quota is usually spent. Download the local model, wait for the quota to reset, or add a MyMemory email for a ten-times larger allowance. |
| “The translation-model download didn’t complete.” | Press Try downloading again — it clears both the remembered failure and a remembered “stuck”. |
| “Chrome hasn’t finished preparing the offline translator…” | A known Chrome behaviour: it reports 100% and then never finishes. Switch to cloud translation, or rely on YouTube’s. |
| “This line couldn’t be matched to YouTube’s translated captions.” | That one line only. Not a model problem but an alignment problem; neighbouring lines are fine. |
| “Downloaded — 77 of 741 lines translated.” | The daily cloud quota ran out mid-export. Add an email in Settings → Languages, or download the local model. |
Saving, downloads and the database
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| “Save failed — retry” | Almost always an orphaned script. Refresh the page. |
| A card saved but looks thin | Saving is deliberately instant; the rest fills in afterwards, when packs finish and again at review time. If the packs are not downloaded, download them. |
| The corner says something is stuck | Press Try again there. It clears the whole retry schedule and restarts everything missing at once. |
| A big pack sits at 0% | Downloads run one at a time, smallest first. It is queued, not stuck. The real status is in Settings → Downloads. |
| “Download failed — try again.” | Five automatic retries run at 30 s, 2 min, 10 min, 30 min and 2 h. A manual click waits for neither queue nor backoff. |
| “Internal error opening database” | The local database is damaged. Settings → Privacy → Repair local storage rebuilds it. Export your profile first if you can — repair loses cards and packs, though settings survive. |
Speech, Learn and PDFs
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| “No on-device speech pack exists for this language here…” | Turn on online recognition if you accept that the sound of your voice — and nothing else — goes to Chrome’s service. |
| “This browser has no speech recognition at all…” | Neither local nor online. Say It Back and scored shadowing are impossible; unscored shadowing with Ctrl+H still works. |
| Learn is empty although you have words | The deck is per language. Check the language in the Learn header or in Settings → Languages. |
| “Nothing has given you trouble yet…” | Vocabulary boss only serves words you have missed. That is the promise, so it does not quietly become an ordinary session. |
| A PDF button says it did not succeed | The message names the layer that refused. Most likely an orphaned script — refresh the PDF tab. |
| The PDF window opens but is empty | Missing file-read permission. The panel in the window asks for it; confirm in Chrome’s dialog. |
| No buttons on a PDF at all | For local files, allow access to file:// URLs at chrome://extensions. |
If it still does not work
Refresh the page first — an orphaned script after an extension update explains most reports.
Then see troubleshooting, or
tell us what happened.