Why "Googletrans.Translator" suddenly stopped working? [duplicate]

Question

I wrote a few lines using Translator function in Googletrans a few days ago. But I was trying to re-run those lines today and it popped a series of errors... I'm really confused by this. If you have experienced similar issue, please comment below. Any help is welcome!!

from googletrans import Translator
translator = Translator()
trans1 = translator.translate('Hello', dest = 'es')

The error I got is following:

AttributeError                            Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-19-c0f9e5495a2f> in <module>()
----> 1 trans1 = translator.translate('Hello', dest = 'es')

~\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\googletrans\client.py in translate(self, text, dest, src)
    170 
    171         origin = text
--> 172         data = self._translate(text, dest, src)
    173 
    174         # this code will be updated when the format is changed.

~\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\googletrans\client.py in _translate(self, text, dest, src)
     73             text = text.decode('utf-8')
     74 
---> 75         token = self.token_acquirer.do(text)
     76         params = utils.build_params(query=text, src=src, dest=dest,
     77                                     token=token)

~\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\googletrans\gtoken.py in do(self, text)
    178 
    179     def do(self, text):
--> 180         self._update()
    181         tk = self.acquire(text)
    182         return tk

~\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\googletrans\gtoken.py in _update(self)
     57         r = self.session.get(self.host)
     58         # this will be the same as python code after stripping out a reserved word 'var'
---> 59         code = unicode(self.RE_TKK.search(r.text).group(1)).replace('var ', '')
     60         # unescape special ascii characters such like a \x3d(=)
     61         if PY3:  # pragma: no cover

AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'group'

I tried to do research on this error msg, but got nothing. What confused me the most is that this simple code worked perfectly fine 3 days ago. But when i open up this morning, i popped errors. Please help. Thank you so much!

Knowall

Answer 1

I got the solution below from this link.

Solution:

pip install git+https://github.com/BoseCorp/py-googletrans.git --upgrade

It worked perfectly for me!

Mise

This also stopped working now in 2022 – Drabble

As of 2023, this works for me: pip install googletrans==4.0.0-rc1 – Suppurative

does not some one send an email to the author of this package and notify him/her about this issue??! – Teak

Answer 2

Update py-googletrans/googletrans/gtoken.py like the following:

RE_TKK = re.compile(r'TKK=eval\(\'\(\(function\(\)\{(.+?)\}\)\(\)\)\'\);',
                    re.DOTALL)
RE_RAWTKK = re.compile(r'tkk:\'([^\']*)\'',re.DOTALL)

def __init__(self, tkk='0', session=None, host='translate.google.com'):
    self.session = session or requests.Session()
    self.tkk = tkk
    self.host = host if 'http' in host else 'https://' + host

def _update(self):
    """update tkk
    """
    # we don't need to update the base TKK value when it is still valid
    now = math.floor(int(time.time() * 1000) / 3600000.0)
    if self.tkk and int(self.tkk.split('.')[0]) == now:
        return

    r = self.session.get(self.host)

    rawtkk = self.RE_RAWTKK.search(r.text)
    if rawtkk:
        self.tkk = rawtkk.group(1)
        return

Unformed

Answer 3

Google has changed the way the token is created. There is no fix at the time of writing. You have to wait for googletrans to be updated.

Prowl

Hi Chris, thx for your answer. Do you know how long normally will it take to get fixed? based on your past experience maybe... Or do you know any alternative packages/functions? Thanks again! – Knowall

It's June 2021 and the bug is alive and kicking! How long should I still wait for an update that ? :)) – Seline

As of 2023, this works for me: pip install googletrans==4.0.0-rc1 – Suppurative

@Dave: your comment merits being a separate answer, since it resolves the issue as of February 2024 – Milson

@essbee: Thanks. This question is closed (due to being a duplicate), thus I could not provide it as an answer. There is a link to the other question at the top of this page. Details of the solution are discussed there. – Suppurative

as @Suppurative mentioned: "As of 2023, this works for me: pip install googletrans==4.0.0-rc1" what if this solution stops working, what is the permanent solution for this? – Teak