Question About Entry Capping Behavior and Segment Realisation Error

[DiegoPa6]

Hi AJO Community,

I'm currently testing the Journey Entry Capping functionality in a journey that is triggered by an event. The rule is configured so that a profile can only enter the journey once per day.

However, when I try to trigger the journey a second time (to validate that the entry capping rule blocks it), the All-time Report — which seems to be the only one showing exclusion details — returns the following error:
"ERROR_SEGMENT_REALISATION_CONDITION_MISMATCH"

I did some research and found that this error might be related to how segmentation is handled (e.g., read audience vs audience qualification), but I was expecting to see the exclusion reason as:
"RULESET_ENTRY_CAP_VIOLATION",
which is the one documented in the official Adobe documentation for capping rule violations.

Does anyone know why I'm seeing this segment mismatch error instead of the expected entry cap violation message? Any clarification would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!
Diego P.

[SatheeskannaK]

@DiegoPa6 When did you activate the second event after the first one? It's possible that both events were triggered for the same record within a 5-minute window, which could have caused this message.

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/journey-optimizer/using/configure-journeys/events-journey...

[DiegoPa6 · Accepted solution]

Hi SatheeskannaK,

Thanks for the response, but someone from Adobe’s software engineering team shared the following with me:

"Read Audience journeys are the only ones this feature fully supports. To be a bit more detailed, this means that in read audience journeys, when it does the lookahead prioritization, it does take into account unitary journeys (i.e. journeys that start with an event) that use the same ruleset. However, unitary journeys themselves will not respect any capping logic at the moment. The GA is scheduled for 5/20, which will have support for unitary journeys."

Best Regards,

Diego P.

[AnkitJasani29]

Hi @DiegoPa6 ,

In AJO, entry capping and segment realization are two different mechanisms:

1) RULESET_ENTRY_CAP_VIOLATION

This is shown only when the entry rule is matched, but the entry cap condition specifically blocks the profile from re-entering the journey.

This means the segment AND the event conditions were met, but the cap rule stopped entry.

2) ERROR_SEGMENT_REALISATION_CONDITION_MISMATCH

This appears when the segment or audience qualification condition is no longer met at the time of the event trigger.

This often happens when:

• The profile exits the audience (segment disqualification) before the second event fires.
• The audience is a read segment, not a live or streaming segment — so it doesn’t re-evaluate in time.
• There is latency in audience qualification updates.

Why You’re Seeing ERROR_SEGMENT_REALISATION_CONDITION_MISMATCH
Looking at your scenario:

• The journey is triggered by an event.
• The profile enters successfully the first time.
• You fire the event a second time, expecting to hit the cap.

But here's what likely happened:

• By the time the second event was fired, the profile was no longer qualified for the audience segment used in the entry condition.
• Therefore, AJO never got to the point of evaluating the entry cap rule — it excluded the profile earlier in the process due to segment mismatch.
• Hence, no RULESET_ENTRY_CAP_VIOLATION is logged, because technically, the profile didn’t even qualify for entry.

What You Can Do
To accurately test entry capping, ensure that:

• The segment/audience used in the journey's entry condition is persistent and continually re-qualifies the user (e.g., use a streaming or real-time segment).
• The event is retriggered within the cap evaluation window while the profile is still part of the qualifying segment.

Alternatively, if you're debugging behavior and just want to isolate the cap violation:

Try building a test journey where the segment qualification is static or guaranteed, and only vary the event and timing.

You're seeing ERROR_SEGMENT_REALISATION_CONDITION_MISMATCH because the profile didn’t meet segment/audience criteria when the second event was triggered. Adobe never evaluated the entry cap at all in that case.

[DiegoPa6]

Hi AnkitJasani29,

Thanks for the response, but someone from Adobe’s software engineering team shared the following with me:

"Read Audience journeys are the only ones this feature fully supports. To be a bit more detailed, this means that in read audience journeys, when it does the lookahead prioritization, it does take into account unitary journeys (i.e. journeys that start with an event) that use the same ruleset. However, unitary journeys themselves will not respect any capping logic at the moment. The GA is scheduled for 5/20, which will have support for unitary journeys."

Best Regards,

Diego P.