Summary
We’re testing Shopify Rollouts as a replacement for a custom metaobject-based scheduling system we built ~1.5 years ago for a client. Rollouts looks very promising conceptually, but two issues are currently blocking us from using it for anything content-related when Markets are involved.
Context
Our client runs many promotions across a large number of Shopify Markets, with significant overlap via Market clusters (e.g. a BENELUX cluster, a DACH cluster, etc.). Creating and scoping a Rollout to a specific Market/cluster works fine. The problem shows up as soon as translations enter the picture.
Issue 1 — Scheduled changes made within a theme (not a separate/draft theme) are not translatable
When a schedule is created directly inside the live theme (rather than as a fully separate draft theme), the content changed by that schedule does not appear in the translation editor. This means:
- Any text/content change scheduled this way is stuck in the theme’s default locale.
- Since our client operates multiple Markets with different languages, this makes schedule-based content changes effectively unusable for anything user-facing — the only things we can safely schedule are non-content settings (e.g. checkboxes, color swatches, layout toggles) that don’t require translation.
Is this expected/by-design, or is translation support for in-theme schedules planned? If it’s a known limitation, is there a recommended pattern for combining Markets + translated content + Rollouts scheduling?
Issue 2 — Dynamic source picker infinite-loads when trying to use a metaobject reference inside an in-theme schedule
As a workaround for Issue 1, we tried pointing schedule-managed settings at metaobject entries instead (since metaobject field values are translatable). However, when trying to add a dynamic source to a setting inside a schedule that lives within a theme (again, not a separate draft theme), the “Ask for changes” / dynamic source popup gets stuck in a permanent loading state and never resolves — see attached screenshot. This makes it impossible to wire up the metaobject reference at all.
Notably, this only reproduces for schedules inside a theme — the same action works fine in a draft theme.
What we’ve tried
- Scoping schedules to a fully separate draft theme instead of a schedule within the live theme — this avoids both issues, but comes with its own downsides (duplicating full theme state per schedule, no shared section/content updates between the live theme and the scheduled draft, more manual reconciliation work).
Questions
- Is translation support for in-theme (non-draft) schedules on the roadmap?
- Is the infinite-loading dynamic source picker a known bug? Happy to provide more repro details/screenshots if useful.
- Is there a recommended approach for combining Markets, translated content, and Rollouts scheduling today, short of using fully separate draft themes per schedule?
Happy to share more screenshots, HAR files, or a repro store if that’s helpful.