Setting debug_mode with Measurement Protocol (GA4)

Question

Can't find a way to set the debug_mode parameter using Measurement Protocol 4 . Tried to put it everywhere (and naming it all i can think of) but without luck:) Documentation is still very light and doesn't mention the debug_mode. With web/js and GA4 it works fine!

Answer 1

To add to the answers of @DalmTo and @bang - I wasn't seeing events I was sending over the Measurement Protocol show up in our GA4 Debug View. The root cause in my case was that the Measurement Protocol expects a funky format for the user_properties , but the following steps should help others debug other problems as well.

Steps I took to resolve:

1. Add the debug_mode: true field to individual event params as described in @bang's answer
2. Use the /debug/mp endpoint as described in @DalmTo's answer - this pointed me towards the errors in my user_properties format

Regarding the user_properties field, I was sending something along these lines:

{
  "client_id": "XXX.XXX",
  "user_id": "YYY",
  "user_properties": {
    "property_a": "value_a",
    "property_b": "value_b"
  },
  "events": ...
}

Turns out GA4 / Measurement Protocol expect something like this:

{
  "client_id": "XXX.XXX",
  "user_id": "YYY",
  "user_properties": {
    "property_a": { "value": "value_a" },
    "property_b": { "value": "value_b" }
  },
  "events": ...
}

At the time of writing, the only way to figure this out is to carefully check out the example here .

Answer 2

The measurment protocol for ga4 has two endpoints just like the measurment protocol for the old Google anlaytics

• Measurement Protocol /mp/collect
• Measurement Protocol Validation Server /debug/mp/collect

So if you send a event to it will be sent to Google anlaytics ga4

POST /mp/collect HTTP/1.1
HOST: www.google-analytics.com

<payload_data>

So if you send a event to it will be sent to debug endpoint for Google anlaytics ga4

POST /debug/mp/collect HTTP/1.1
HOST: www.google-analytics.com

<payload_data>

Answer 3

Weird. Suddenly the debug mode started to work with code I'm 100% sure didn't work before.

Adding the parameter debug_mode = true to the measurement protocol 4 request will make it show up in analytics DebugView.

Sample json payload that works:

{
  client_id: 'XXXXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYYYY',
  events:
  [{
    name: 'page_view',
    params:
    {
      page_location: '....',
      page_path: '....',
      page_title: '....',
      debug_mode: true
    }
  }]
}