Inconsistent population of pageName and eVarX during page view calls—possible SDK race condition or beacon timing issue?

[techkodainya]

We're observing that in our Adobe Analytics implementation, at the time of a page view tracking call, neither the pageName nor our designated eVarX (which is meant to capture the current section of the site) is getting populated consistently. However, downstream in attribution reports and workspace segments, the correct values appear under certain traffic scenarios—specifically when visitors arrive via deep-linked social channels. Could this indicate a race‑condition or SDK batching delay in setting these values? Has anyone successfully mitigated context‑loss for such partial hits—and how?

** To follow-up, has anyone profiled browser‑to‑server SDK behavior to confirm whether these variables are populated pre‑send or post‑callback? And more interestingly, does enabling the s.sendBeacon or setting imageRequest override truly guarantee consistent serialization of these context variables in edge cases?** @techkodainya

[Vinay_Chauhan]

Hi @techkodainya 

This type of issue usually points to the timing of when variables are being set in relation to when the tracking call is fired, rather than a true SDK race condition. If the pageName or eVar is not defined before the beacon is sent, the hit will go out without those values. Later in reporting, attribution models can sometimes make the data appear complete, which is why you are seeing the values show up in certain traffic flows such as deep links.

The way to address this is to make sure your variables are reliably populated before the page view call is executed. That may mean restructuring your tag manager rules, using callback logic, or adding a guard to confirm that the values are set before allowing the beacon to fire. Transport methods like sendBeacon or forcing an image request do not guarantee consistency here, they only affect how the data is delivered, not when variables are bound to the hit.

In short, the fix is at the implementation level: review sequencing to ensure that the pageName and related context variables are available before the tracking call is triggered. This will eliminate the inconsistency you are observing.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

I agree with @Vinay_Chauhan,

Basically, the best place for testing your implementation is live (using the Platform Debugger or other tools on web) and AEP Assurance for your mobile apps, etc.

If you don't see information being sent to Adobe on your requests (apart from retained eVar values that are persisted from earlier values based on the specific expiry), then this would indicate a timing issue with your implementation.

Even though the SDK is "server-side" coding, you still have to send all your data via the XDM Schema to the server, and you should see all the data in that datastream...  if something is missing, then this is where the fix has to be made. I suspect that the data you are seeing in your attribution reports is persisted data, which may or may not be what you want... something like eVar for section you probably want to expire on the hit (especially if the value isn't being set properly on all calls, you will likely have the wrong value persisted onto pages that are not in that section)

Without knowing how your implementation is done, it's hard to make suggestions on how to handle this.. in most cases, this would require maybe an adjustment of your rule triggers... in my case, I had some very laggy dependencies and I had to code my own custom delay code to loop and check for something to exist before tracking (and if it isn't found in a reasonable time, to continue tracking without the information)... but my solution is very specific to my own site needs.

In short, you may need to investigate what specifically is happening on your site with your implementation specialist (if you have one) and a site developer...