Duplicate queries after enabling insights middleware

[giilby]

Per https://www.algolia.com/doc/api-reference/widgets/insights/js/, I've configured the insights middleware in order to track some basic usage and conversion events. However, after doing so, I noticed duplicate queries happening on page load. The first is typically for an anonymous user (e.g. userToken: anonymous-957a8f35-8aca-41e4-b397-30f87ca448dd), and the second is for a logged-in user (e.g. userToken: 12345). Is this expected behavior? I was a bit surprised by it, as I assumed instantsearch.js would continue to only execute a single query on page load. If it's not expected, I'm happy to file a bug report...just thought I'd ask the question first.

[Haroenv]

This would indeed be classed as a bug, however I can't reproduce it, the only query I see happening is the one one set with an explicit user token: https://codesandbox.io/s/clever-agnesi-5brum9?file=/index.html:1255-1300

Do you have a sandbox of how your setup is done?

[giilby]

Well, I tried real hard to reproduce this issue in a sandbox, but was unsuccessful. Notably, the issue only occurs intermittently in our production application, so it may be a timing issue of some sort. Here are additional details that might be helpful:

We're setting useCookie: true in aa( 'init'; we also set userToken (when it's available) in that same init call, rather than using setUserToken.

When two queries occur on page load, here are the stack traces for each (our application code is asset-search.min.js, and we've implemented a custom searchFunction):

First query:

searchFunction (asset-search.min.js?ver=1.0.0:formatted:85)
t.search (InstantSearch.ts:474)
(anonymous) (InstantSearch.ts:564)
(anonymous) (defer.ts:26)
Promise.then (async)
e (defer.ts:18)
value (InstantSearch.ts:519)
(anonymous) (asset-search.min.js?ver=1.0.0:formatted:445) - this is `search.start()`
(anonymous) (asset-search.min.js?ver=1.0.0:formatted:723)

Second query:

searchFunction (asset-search.min.js?ver=1.0.0:formatted:85)
t.search (InstantSearch.ts:474)
(anonymous) (InstantSearch.ts:564)
(anonymous) (defer.ts:26)
Promise.then (async)
e (defer.ts:18)
addWidgets (index.ts:344)
value (InstantSearch.ts:375)
e (createInsightsMiddleware.ts:121)
(anonymous) ([email protected]:1)
T.i ([email protected]:1)
(anonymous) ([email protected]:1)
T ([email protected]:1)
m ([email protected]:1)
(anonymous) ([email protected]:1)
(anonymous) ([email protected]:1)
(anonymous) ([email protected]:1)

So, it appears that whenever the second query happens, it's being triggered by [email protected]. Please let me know if there are any other details I can provide; I'll also try a few other things in the sandbox to see if I can replicate it there.

Thanks for looking into this!

[giilby]

After updating to the latest versions of instantsearch.js and algoliasearch today, we were still experiencing this behavior. However, I did find this article: https://support.algolia.com/hc/en-us/articles/12812765253009-Why-do-I-see-a-double-query-after-adding-insights-to-my-site. Since we're bundling with Webpack and including our script at the bottom of the page, the suggested solution isn't very straightforward for us. Thus, to sidestep the issue, I configured insights like this (for now):

insights: {
  insightsInitParams: {
    useCookie: true
  }
}

By omitting authenticatedUserToken (which we were previously setting), I no longer see duplicate queries on page load.