Multilingual Text widget is part of the String Translation WPML plugin. It has pretty much the same functionality as the built-in WordPress Text Widget, except that it allows you to choose the language when it will be shown.

If you’re using the Multilingual Text widget in the footer of our themes where you can set the layout in the customizer it will most probably break the layout of the footer, disrespecting the settings you’ve set in the customizer.

Solution

The solution is the following: don’t use a Multilingual Text widget in the footer, but rather use the regular (WP core) Text Widget together with the Widget Logic plugin, the same as for the other widgets.

An example of the Widget Logic code: ICL_LANGUAGE_CODE == 'en' for English or ICL_LANGUAGE_CODE == 'de' for German.

Explanation

The Widget Logic plugin is hiding the content in a different, less error-prone way than the Multilingual Text widget. Our PHP logic for the dynamic footer layouts doesn’t detect what the Multilingual Text widget is doing so it doesn’t apply the layout in the right way. However, the logic works fine when using the Widget Logic plugin inside the Text Widget.