My pany is using Google Analytics on our websites. We found a weird bug that only occurs on one puter. We didn't see the issue when we tried to reproduce it on another machine using the exact same version of Linux with the same version of Firefox.

Here's the issue: Whenever a page with the Google Analytics tracking code is loaded in Firefox for Linux, the page automatically refreshes after 60 seconds - always 60 seconds. My guess is that this is an issue related to the Analytics' tracking the visit duration.

Has anyone else experienced any issues with the Analytics snippet causing their webpage to reload? Any clue what causes this? One other person posted about the same issue on Google Analytics help, but they have yet to receive a response.

This issue just started happening about a week ago.

My pany is using Google Analytics on our websites. We found a weird bug that only occurs on one puter. We didn't see the issue when we tried to reproduce it on another machine using the exact same version of Linux with the same version of Firefox.

Here's the issue: Whenever a page with the Google Analytics tracking code is loaded in Firefox for Linux, the page automatically refreshes after 60 seconds - always 60 seconds. My guess is that this is an issue related to the Analytics' tracking the visit duration.

Has anyone else experienced any issues with the Analytics snippet causing their webpage to reload? Any clue what causes this? One other person posted about the same issue on Google Analytics help, but they have yet to receive a response.

This issue just started happening about a week ago.

• javascript
• linux
• firefox
• google-analytics

• Strange. The thing is, GA doesnt track visit duration by polling; it reconstructs visit time on by subtracting pageview timestamps (that's why a bounce visit gets tracked as a time on site of 0) – Yahel Commented Jul 21, 2011 at 22:40
• OK, didn't realize that. My understanding was incorrect. :] I figured they were doing this within the visit itself. So what else are they doing on a timed interval that could cause this? It happens every 60 seconds without fail on our test machine. When I looked through ga.js, I couldn't find anything that ran on an exact 60 second interval, though... – John Nicely Commented Jul 22, 2011 at 22:37
• 1 I have the same problem. Only for me it happens on Mac OS X Lion and Snow Leopard (but same mac. I updated). I noticed this only in Chrome. Maybe it has to do with some specific cookies set on your puter? It does not happen in Safari on the same puter. – Sebastian Hoitz Commented Jul 23, 2011 at 10:08
• Man, I wish we could get some useful answers to this question... Getting nothing. – John Nicely Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 21:58
• @John, I'm poking around to see if I can turn anything up. It would help if I myself could replicate it. Can you share more URLs where its happening? – Yahel Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 23:48

3 Answers 3

There, a guy says deleting cookie GASO may solve the issue.

The cookie GASO ( google analytics site overlay ) seems to be setted when viewing google in-page so that if you go on the website, the google analytics see the cookie GASO and open in-page on the website.

When I tested this cookie was deleted when closing in-page ( so I don't see why you would still have it if google analytics in-page is closed ), but since the google support link seems to say it's related to that, you might give it a try.

I can't ment so posting as answer.

I can confirm this issue on IE 8 so it's not restricted to FF+Linux. Clearing all cookies solved the problem in IE as well (not sure how to delete a single cookie in IE).

What I don't know is how you "contract" the issue. One of the IE browsers with the issue never accessed GA, let alone in-page analytics.

Have you tried using firefox in safe mode without any extensions? Since you have the analytic information, what percent of your users are affected by this?

I'm guessing that it is a unique bination that you happen to use and isn't found in real world users.