How can I stop the automatic location and language-related redirection of Apple Support files?

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Level 4

3,499 points

How can I stop the automatic location and language-related redirection of Apple Support files?

I'm having problems using the Apple Community and it's getting worse...

I am an extensive user of the Logic Pro Apple Community in English and German.

I am based in Germany, but I also need to read and share the English Apple support articles. But when I click on an English support article link (like in Google Search), I am usually automatically redirected to the German support article. This happens even if I change my location to US at the bottom of the Apple website.

This makes it almost impossible for me to participate in the English-language Logic Pro community, as any Apple support link I like to read and share is automatically converted into the German link address, which is useless for the English-language community.

Does anyone have any advice?

MacBook Pro 13″

Posted on Dec 1, 2023 12:18 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

etresoft

Level 9

57,026 points

Dec 2, 2023 3:43 PM in response to yoyoBen

Apple's support servers will detect the language in your web browser and automatically redirect you.

Here are some options:

1) You can setup Google Chrome and use that to access one of the languages. Google Chrome has the ability to manually specify your language instead of using your system language.

2) You can download Safari Technology Preview and use that to access one of the languages. In System Settings, you can specify the language to be used for each app. You can configure Safari Technology Preview to run in your secondary language.

3) You can just manually hack the URL. Navigation to an Apple support article like https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT213745 and change the "en-ca" portion to whatever you want, either "en-us" or "de-de".

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,478 points

Dec 1, 2023 7:03 AM in response to yoyoBen

yoyoBen wrote: This happens even if I change my location to US at the bottom of the Apple website.

Try changing your location to the UK instead of the US.

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,478 points

Dec 2, 2023 3:41 PM in response to yoyoBen

yoyoBen wrote:

Thank you, it seems to work. And I also found the location alternative "Other Europe" which also keeps the English version.

I need to investigate a little more because sometimes it works (with US or UK), sometimes not, that's weird...

It's certainly odd. I am in the US and suddenly wound up with all the links in Ukrainian, for no obvious reason. It took a lot of trial and error to find that asking for the UK would fix it.

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Answer 4

etresoft

Level 9

57,026 points

Dec 2, 2023 4:49 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Tom Gewecke wrote:

When I had my problem, fix 3) had no effect — very strange,

I'm not sure what was going on with that. Fix 3 is a sure fix. It bypasses the redirection logic entirely. This is what I normally do.

I wouldn't recommend any solution that changes the entire system language. For one thing, that requires at a least a logout, and maybe a restart. It seems like it works right away when you restart apps, but it doesn't, especially for Apple apps.

There is not a one-to-one relationship between app language and the "accept-language" header. Any attempt to use region as a way to reverse-engineer and change the header as a side effect is not going to be reliable. Even directly setting the app language is a hack, just a more straightforward one.

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