Resolving “Please try again with a public locale” when updating a user’s role or profile

Overview

Users may see the error “Please try again with a public locale” when saving a user profile in Kayako, including during role changes such as promoting a customer to Agent, Administrator, or Owner.

This behavior occurs when the profile’s Language is set to a locale that is not currently enabled as a public language in the instance. Kayako validates the selected locale during the save operation and rejects the update if that locale is not public.

In practice, this means a role change can fail even when permissions, seat availability, and the selected role are otherwise correct. The issue is not caused by the role itself; it is caused by the profile being saved with a non-public language.

Solution or Explanation

The key point is:

A user profile can only be saved with a language that is enabled as a public locale in Kayako.

If the selected language is not public, Kayako blocks the save and returns the message:

Please try again with a public locale

To resolve the issue:

1. Open the user’s existing profile in the Agent Area.
2. In the right-hand properties panel, review the Language field.
3. If the selected language is not enabled publicly, change it to a language that is already public and enabled, such as English (United States).
4. Save the profile again using Update properties.
5. If that user must use a different language, first enable that language under Admin > Localization, then return to the user profile and save the change again.

If the person already exists in Kayako as a user, update the existing profile instead of trying to create a second user with the same identity.

If the target role is Owner, the role change must be performed by an existing Owner account.

Example

For example, an administrator may open an existing user profile, change the role to Owner, and leave the Language field set to a locale such as Nederlands. If that locale is not enabled publicly in the instance, Kayako will reject the update with “Please try again with a public locale.” Changing the profile language to a public locale, or enabling that locale first, allows the save to succeed.

Verification

After the correction:

• The profile saves successfully without the public locale error.
• The updated role remains on the user profile after refresh.
• The user appears with the expected role in the user or agent directory.

Additional Notes

• This error is separate from seat-limit or subscription-limit errors. If Kayako instead reports that the current plan allows fewer agents or collaborators than expected, investigate licensing or subscription synchronization separately.
• Only locales that are enabled as public under Localization can be used successfully on saved user profiles.
• A successful role change does not require enabling multiple languages unless the selected language is not already public.

References

• Ticket #60426263 — Example use case where this behavior was investigated and confirmed.
• Assigning User Roles to Your Team and Customers
• Changing a User's Preferred Language and Timezone
• Enabling Multiple Languages for Your Customers and Agents