Content Delivery API Language Fallback Not Working as Expected in Umbraco 13

Questions
,
1

I’m implementing multilingual support in Umbraco 13.7 using the Content Delivery API with a NextJS frontend. After reviewing previous discussions (like this thread), I’m still unclear about the expected behavior of language fallback.

My setup:

  • Umbraco 13.7 with Content Delivery API
  • Enabled “vary by culture” for document types
  • Enabled culture variation for property editors:
public List<string> AllowedEditorAliases { get; set; } = new List<string>
{
  UmbracoConstants.PropertyEditors.Aliases.BlockList,
  UmbracoConstants.PropertyEditors.Aliases.TextBox,
  UmbracoConstants.PropertyEditors.Aliases.TextArea,
  UmbracoConstants.PropertyEditors.Aliases.MultipleTextstring,
  UmbracoConstants.PropertyEditors.Aliases.TinyMce
};
  • Multiple languages configured with proper fallback settings in Umbraco backoffice

What I expected:

  1. When requesting content with Accept-Language header for a non-default language:
  • If a translated variant exists, I get the translated content
  • If no variant exists, it automatically falls back to the configured fallback language
  • For individual properties, if a property is null in the requested language, it should use the value from the fallback language

What I’m experiencing: Similar to the issue reported by Jarrod:

  • Invariant fields work correctly
  • Translated fields in the requested language work correctly
  • Empty/null fields in the requested language return null instead of falling back to the default language value

Questions:

  1. Is automatic language fallback supported in the Content Delivery API? If so, is there additional configuration required?
  2. Do I need to implement fallback logic manually in my frontend code?
  3. Is there an API parameter (similar to the Fallback.ToDefaultLanguage used in template rendering) that can be passed to enable this behavior?
  4. Is this considered a feature gap in the current implementation?

Any advice or clarification would be greatly appreciated, especially from those who have successfully implemented language fallback with the Content Delivery API.

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