Auto-Capture doesn't respect AutoLocalize

[Ukendio (Marcus)]

The LocalizationTable contains strings of GuiObjects with AutoLocalizeset to off. Assuming you have a popular game and you have looked at your translator portal, it is likely bombarded by a metric ton of scraped useless strings.

I am unable to find a very effective minimal repro, however if you search classname=textlabel, autolocalize=false, text = "" (which pertains to UGC strings) seems to be a good portion of the locations with problematic strings.

Expected behavior

While AutoLocalize is set to off, it shouldn’t capture and store the strings in the localization table and also be propagated to the translator portal.

[boatbomber (Zack_Ovits)]

Can confirm this occurs in Lua Learning as well. It’s very annoying, since there’s tons of user generated text that I don’t want scraped.

I have AutoLocalize disabled on my Paragraph label:

and yet I have strings from Paragraph anyway:

[melonwhine]

Hey @Ukendio , thanks for the report - could you link me to your experience so we can take a look at your localization tables? Thanks!

[Ukendio (Marcus)]

Horse Valley

[melonwhine]

Just to confirm as well - was Autolocalize ever set to true for the component?
Would you also be able to share your code where the GuiObject is defined? Do you use a Translator instance?

[Ukendio (Marcus)]

was Autolocalize ever set to true for the component

It used to be set to true… but that is the default so I don’t know whether that is significant.

---

Would you also be able to share your code where the GuiObject is defined

We have plenty of scripts that revolve around GUIObject’s that take user input. Here are a couple:

Signals.Reliable.TradeRequestStart.OnClientEvent:Connect(function(player2, showBlockButton)
	if Restricted then
		Signals.Reliable.TradeRequestRestricted:FireServer(player2)
		return
	end
	Signals.Reliable.TradeRequestSuccess:FireServer(player2)
	Menu.Block.Visible = showBlockButton
	local newButtonSize = (showBlockButton and BUTTONS_SIZE_BLOCK) or BUTTONS_SIZE_NORMAL
	Menu.Confirm.Size = newButtonSize
	Menu.Close.Size = newButtonSize
	Description.Text = player2.Name .. " sent you a trade request!"

---

local message = script.Message:Clone()
		local description = message.Description
		description.Text = text

Do you use a Translator instance?

Yes we do use the Translator instance in 2 of the 8 (or so) mass-duplicated strings so to me it is indicative that the Translator instance is not the issue.

[MonitorWizard123]

Hi @Ukendio thanks for the info.

Are the strings you are seeing in your table the "<playername> sent you a trade request!" ones?

If so, can you show how Description is being created?

(note that client-side translator instances can contribute to ATC as well).

[Ukendio (Marcus)]

Are the strings you are seeing in your table the "<playername> sent you a trade request!" ones?

Yes

If so, can you show how Description is being created?

It is in the second snippet of my previous message. We clone an instance that we have made imperatively in the PlayerGui.

(note that client-side translator instances can contribute to ATC as well).

I am not sure what ATC is but we have a lot of strings that are getting duplicated, ones that do not use Translator instances at all!

[melonwhine]

Thanks @Ukendio , while we continue to investigate the root cause of the issue, we have cleaned up your experience’s localization table to prevent more ugc content from getting scraped. Please let me know if you’re still seeing tonnes of ugc strings from certain game locations, we’ll add them to the blocklist for you. Thanks for flagging the issue and your patience on this!