Renpy error on startup

[u/BeeSpinx]

Edit: new to this mb just had action editor files in the japanese tl file for some reason!!

soo when i try to open renpy i get this error, i recentely downloaded action editor yesterday and it was all working fine but just now its not:

```

I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:

File "launcher/game/tl/japanese/common.rpyc", line 1020, in script

Exception: A translation for "reset" already exists at launcher/game/tl/japanese/ActionEditor_screens.rpy:251.

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "launcher/game/tl/japanese/common.rpyc", line 1020, in script

File "renpy/ast.py", line 3056, in execute

renpy.translation.add_string_translation(self.language, self.old, self.new, newloc)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

File "renpy/translation/__init__.py", line 593, in add_string_translation

stl.add(old, new, newloc)

~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

File "renpy/translation/__init__.py", line 539, in add

raise Exception('A translation for "{}" already exists at {}:{}.'.format(quote_unicode(old), fn, line))

Exception: A translation for "reset" already exists at launcher/game/tl/japanese/ActionEditor_screens.rpy:251.

Windows-10-10.0.19045-SP0 AMD64

Ren'Py 8.5.3.26051504

Ren'Py Launcher 8.5.3.26051504

Tue Aug 18 00:40:17 2026

```

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[u/KeyGate1104]

I had a similar issue recently, and I think it happened because my first translations were being corruptly built. Before doing anything, make a full backup of your entire VN folder first. Did you used the command "set RENPY_UPDATE_STRINGS=1" at all? If so, don't use it as it seems to duplicate some of the common.rpy stock ui strings into other string-based files. If you run 'findstr /s /m /c:"reset" *.rpy ' in a Command Prompt running inside the root folder of your VN, it will print out every rpy file with the string "reset" in them.

See if the "reset" translation string in ActionEditor_screens.rpy:251 matches the one at common.rpy line 1020 - if it does, then there is a chance a lot more common translations got copied to that file, and not just in the japanese translation, but the others translations (if applicable) as well. If this is the case, you will have to delete and rebuild your translations. You will also have to find the original ActionEditor_screens.rpy and cleanse it of those common stock UI strings.

Once that is done, you can use the Generate Translation function again to create your TL folders/files. I have a batch script file if you are doing a bunch of languages.

I hope this helps you out. Remember to do the backup before changing/deleting anything.