Bug: GA4 shows bad data in Average engagement time

Developers Zaraz
1

After the recent Zaraz update, strange data started appearing in GA4. The Average engagement time is showing the wrong values.

Tested on other sites where there is no Zaraz and the data works fine.

ga4-bug

5 Likes
2

Hello,

Same on our side. Just raising awareness to this issue.

2 Likes
3

I checked the duration of the scripts and I think that’s the problem.

cookie
cookie1380Ă—583 32.8 KB

1 Like
4

This post explains that it’s an issue with Zaraz itself that needs to be improved on.

This was posted in March 2022, it seems that the issue is still there.

Can we expect this to be fixed in the future ?

The issue seems pretty important, it makes a big part of GA4 useless: the engagement view.
This is for example a screenshot of our current engagement view with Zaraz, the values are completely meaningless.

Screenshot Analytics Engagement overview
Screenshot Analytics Engagement overview706Ă—402 22.5 KB

4 Likes
5

Hi there,

I also have the same issue here. This is a pretty large flaw, as to optimize our marketing and analytics we cannot retrieve the data to let GA4 know which users are actually engaging with the content in our website.

2 Likes
6

Same here, hoping this will get fixed soon.

1 Like
7

Afternoon everyone,

We’re experiencing the same issue on multiple sites.

Is there an update on a fix for this issue?

Thanks
Chris

8

There’s currently no fix for this. It would be useful if people directed the complaints to Google, asking them to either help with the open-source Managed Component GitHub - managed-components/google-analytics-4: Google Analytics 4 Managed Component or at least provide a documented API.

9

This seems to have been fixed in the last few days. All the sites I have running Zaraz and GA4 have drstically dropped in their “Average engagement time per session” metric.

I’m taking down from days to seconds.

Weird though. There is nothing about this in the Zaraz change log. Nor in the GA4 change log.

Seems like someone accidently fixed something, somewhere.

Glad it seems to be sorted though!

10

Here’s a commit fixing the problem.

https://github.com/managed-components/google-analytics-4/commit/413db0dbba840ae63fb6700dfa2c03eabfecf447

Not on the release nots, but it was merged.

Thank you jonnyparris!

11

Here’s a commit fixing the problem.

https://github.com/managed-components/google-analytics-4/commit/413db0dbba840ae63fb6700dfa2c03eabfecf447

Not on the release nots, but it was merged.

Thank you jonnyparris!

12

Hello. Any updates on the Average engagement time issue. We’ ve been facing the same issue since moving to Zaraz from Client Side Analytics.

1 Like
13

Hey, it’s November 2024 and we’re still facing this issue. We’re not moving to Zaraz until this is fixed.

14

2025 already, any updates here?