nodejs/node · error

U_UNSUPPORTED_ERROR

U_UNSUPPORTED_ERROR

Error message

Multiple @translate tags cannot be supported.

What it means

While counting @translate comment annotations in resource bundle strings, genrb found more than one @translate tag in the same set of translation comments. ICU resource bundles support @translate as a special comment directive for marking translation status, but only one instance per string is supported. The tool exits the process with U_UNSUPPORTED_ERROR — this is a fatal, non-recoverable error.

Source

Thrown at deps/icu-small/source/tools/genrb/prscmnts.cpp:178

    if (U_FAILURE(*status)) {
        return 0;
    }
    int32_t retLen = pattern->split(src, stringArray, MAX_SPLIT_STRINGS, *status);
    
    UnicodeString patternString(patternStrings[option]);
    RegexMatcher matcher(patternString, UREGEX_DOTALL, *status);
    if (U_FAILURE(*status)) {
        return 0;
    } 
    int32_t count = 0;
    for(int32_t i=0; i<retLen; i++){
        matcher.reset(stringArray[i]);
        if(matcher.lookingAt(*status)){
            count++;
        }
    }
    if(option == UPC_TRANSLATE && count > 1){
        fprintf(stderr, "Multiple @translate tags cannot be supported.\n");
        exit(U_UNSUPPORTED_ERROR);
    }
    return count;
}

U_CFUNC int32_t 
getAt(const char16_t* source, int32_t srcLen,
        char16_t** dest, int32_t destCapacity,
        int32_t index,
        UParseCommentsOption option,
        UErrorCode* status){

    if(status == nullptr || U_FAILURE(*status)){
        return 0;
    }

    UnicodeString     stringArray[MAX_SPLIT_STRINGS];
    RegexPattern      *pattern = RegexPattern::compile(UnicodeString("@"), UREGEX_MULTILINE, *status);

View on GitHub (pinned to 1b2de5e052)

Solutions

1. Search the resource bundle .txt file for duplicate @translate tags: `grep -n '@translate' <file.txt>`
2. Remove all but one @translate tag from each string's comment block
3. If using translation management tooling, configure it to overwrite rather than append @translate directives
4. Run genrb with validation-only mode first (if available) to detect comment issues before full compilation

Example fix

// before: duplicate @translate tags
    greeting {
        // @translate
        // @translate
        "Hello"
    }
// after: single @translate tag
    greeting {
        // @translate
        "Hello"
    }

# Check for duplicate @translate tags before running genrb
for f in data/*.txt; do
    count=$(grep -c '@translate' "$f" 2>/dev/null || echo 0)
    # Check per-string: look for multiple @translate within the same comment block
    awk '/@translate/{c++} /^\\s*"/{if(c>1)print FILENAME":"NR": "c" @translate tags"; c=0}' "$f"
done

When it happens

Trigger: A resource bundle .txt file containing a string with multiple @translate directives in its comment block. The regex matcher counts @translate occurrences across the comment string array; if count > 1 with the UPC_TRANSLATE option, the tool exits immediately via exit(U_UNSUPPORTED_ERROR).

Common situations: Merging translation files that each add their own @translate tag; automated tooling that appends @translate without checking for an existing one; copy-pasting a translated string with its comment block that already contains @translate.

Related errors

• Illegal utf-8 sequence at Column: %d\n
• %s: error in command line argument "%s"\n
• %s: Error: don't specify an encoding (-e) when writing to st
• %s: error in command line argument "%s"\n
• %s: cannot combine --writePoolBundle and --usePoolBundle\n

AI-assisted analysis of nodejs/node@1b2de5e052 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/744745f0dbc53231. Report an issue: GitHub.